Cat and Mouse
by taratron
Summary: There's more to DepthCharge and Rampage than you think.
1. Chapter 1

Cat and Mouse

_Cat and mouse…_

_Our kind. Us people. All of us that started the game with a crooked cue, that wanted so much_

_and got so little, that meant so good and did so bad._

_Jim Thompson_

_The Killer Inside Me_

It was night and he was supposed to be on patrol. However, after a quick talk with the Fuzor, Quickstrike had been more than happy to take the three mile hike around the volcano pits. As a matter or fact, he had been so happy that he had run off without even telling Megatron.

Rampage relaxed in his quarters, or at least came to a state resembling that. He would never be fully relaxed, much less happy, until his spark was his own again.

Contrary to Megatron (that fool! And what a fool he was!) believed, Rampage was not stupid, he knew very well who was in control. Those brief times when Rampage _did_ fight back against an order were rare indeed, and were results from primal rage, not rational thought. He knew all too well who was in command, and he was not him. This, of course, was the story of his life, the very _theme_ of his life…one he was determined to change.

_I wonder how any of them would like it_, he thought with barely a snarl; Megatron kept tight security in recorders and cameras around the base, and certainly in Rampage's quarters. It would not do to give Megatron any _more_ reason to compress his spark, though the tyrant did when he was furious, apathetic, or even bored. _I wonder how any of them, say, Tarantulas or Waspinator would like it. Even Inferno, what would he think of his 'Queen' if Megatron used HIS spark as a remote control, as a stress reliever?_

He knew how they would like it. Oh, how many times he had _dreamed_ of getting a hold of one of their sparks. He wouldn't lock it into an energon-clasped box, oh, no, he had much _better_ plans. Eating a spark, he remembered doing that once, how the spark had shrieked all the way down, pleasantly tickling his throat and stomach. Or popping one…he had once held a spark in his hands, cupped like a sacred object, and then brought his fingers into fists, bursting it in a shatter of brilliance and screaming. On patrol once he had found a nest of organic animal eggs. Squeezing them into bloody yolks had done little to relieve _his_ needs, but fantasy of those bird embryos instead being Megatron or Tarantulas or even that idiot Quickstrike had kept him amused on a tedious mission.

His needs…oh, yes, he had not hurt anyone save Tarantulas, and _that_ had been upon escaping that infernal pod. And then freedom! Some confusion (_And where_, he had wondered_, did High Command send me? Because I am certainly not supposed to be ALIVE…_), naturally, and then his sensors had picked up the weak (and very messy, as it turned out) tarantula spider. Things had gone from confusing to delight, because apparently High Command had proved its thoughtfulness yet again by sending his pod to a place with life, with _sentient_ life that could scream and beg as Tarantulas had, before he smashed out his vocal units.

And then…then something had happened to his systems, warning of too much energon, of _another_ form, TWO alternative forms, and somehow, somehow three prey, three bots who _should_ have been dead already, or at least been found by his sensors, fought back. They did, sometimes, in his experience, but the lesson that you couldn't fight the beast settled in, usually posthumously. Something had happened as his systems went into stasis, and even in stasis he was conscious, trying to transform, and _those three left him_, left him alive…and he might have been free still had Megatron not traced and tracked him down.

He had been slightly conscious when his spark was removed, scraped out like a botched operation, and then mercifully full stasis of the mind threw him to the darkness. That was the last time he went into stasis under his own life and command. When he awoke, of course, it had come to pass to understand that he was free no longer, that he was again property. This was hardly a new state, but it enraged him all the more that he had _finally_ escaped High Command, _finally_ escaped the hell of being conscious and in a stasis pod, formless but not mindless, only to end up as a pawn for another egotistical maniac.

_At least Megatron is not into the science of eternal sparks._ No, for Megatron it was enough to know that Rampage could be made to obey through that agony. Megatron thankfully was not interested in the science of keeping Rampage under control, or how to extend that control, or (and here he wondered if Primus, if there _was_ such a thing as that, had a sense of humor) to allow any scientist to work on making Rampage's spark more resistance to some types of pain. For once in his life, he would have tolerated, not enjoyed, no, not by a long shot, such experiments, for they would have loosened Megatron's hold on him.

But the tyrant was a fool, not stupid. He knew how to control his weapon of mass destruction, and that was all he needed to know. Further exploration into Rampage might prove…not safe for his health. And Rampage knew he himself would see to that.

The night was young, however, and he was not used to leisure time. Megatron certainly saw that it was a rare beast indeed, but at times it was wise to allow the crew some illusion (and when he had first thought this, he had laughed again, laughed so hard Megatron compressed his spark) of freedom.

He would have preferred an underwater quarters, but naturally Darkside was as far from the ocean as it was from verdant fields; taking a trip to his beast mode's native (and thus desired) ground would surely arouse Megatron's attention and twitchy hands.

So instead he sprawled on the metal bunk, studying the ceiling, letting his mind drift out to reach his spark, to feel again its tormented state, and then withdrew with barely a grimace. He enjoyed pain, oh, yes, it was delicious, but only in others. He developed tolerance, not delight for his own.

His quarters were understandably Spartan. He had never been one for possessions, and was a complete contrast to Waspinator's quarters, as the wasp would drag in anything shiny, bright, colorful, or remotely floral stinking into his room. The few times Rampage had seen inside it, the floor was not visible. The spiders were not nearly as bad; they kept their quarters clean if only not to arouse suspicion that something of use, or of treachery, might be under the spoil. Inferno kept a relatively neat quarters, unless you counted the bizarre (and in a way, Rampage admitted privately, frightening) amounts of Megatron image scans on the walls and ceiling. As for Quickstrike, his walls were not overly covered like Waspinator's, but there were some images of his beast mode parts, as well as some scans of Maximals after battle. Chances were he used those for target practice. He certainly could use it.

Whereas Megatron's quarters were off-limits from the security cameras, and that irritated Rampage to no end. Perhaps the tyrant slept with Rampage's spark in his hands, or left it in his cleansing tub next to that absurd rubber duck creature. Either way, it was lost to him…for now.

The others had left their marks on their respective quarters, and it was understandable that Megatron might have as well. Rampage's room, however, was mostly bare and gray. He was grateful, in a small way, for that color shift. He was not afraid of anything, but some things _did_ make him slightly more nervous than he wished. Most of the time, those were merely nightmares, and they always seemed to fade with time. He was not afraid of them, but they did serve as more fuel to enrage him of the future in which he might certainly be this idiot's puppet for the rest of Megatron's life.

No images decorated his walls, and only his weapons were displayed on small shelves. His room's computer was relatively untouched. For most of his life, possessions had always been out of reach, and he did not envy those who had captured him any for those material things. He did not even require his weapons, for he was well aware that he was a living one. But they _did _make life more interesting.

The fact remained that he was alone for the night, without duties, without plans, and if he left the base, surely some would be dutifully slammed into him via that damned spark-box.

Recharge seemed a viable option. Recharge his energy cells, and remember, perchance to dream…

As if guided by memory alone, a hand quested into subspace and revealed one of the very scant few items he owned, and one that he did want to keep. It would never do for Megatron to see such things, for he would take untold delight in throwing them into the lava pits, if only for the expression in Rampage's optics.

But Megatron did understand the need for brutality, and perhaps he understood and was even amused by the Maximal rogue who ignored Primal's near every command in pursuit of his crab puppet. The item _was_ a scanned image, and it was a fairly new image, but with old memories. The image was of DepthCharge, and Rampage looked it over almost fondly.

With an eerie expression on his face, he subspaced it again, and dropped into recharge, a faint smirking smile on his face.

* * *

><p><em>Light.<em>

_Bright white, the coming of the white, and he snarled, or at least tried to. They now had to gag him, else he would shriek throughout whatever the cursed scientists had planned. He still had no idea why he had finally been given a voice, for not a single one of them spoke to him. He had a nasty idea that this was a joke of theirs, to try and give him a way to fight back, only to forcibly mute him when he tried. Either that, or someone at the top had signed something without reading it first again. He was all too aware of the mistakes in High Command, he had survived them all._

_There was no way to escape, but his body vibrated under the restraints anyway; it was an urge he could never subdue, nor really wanted to. The day he stopped fighting back would be the day he surrendered, the day he gave up and admitted he was nothing but a thing, that he deserved this. His optics flashed in fury and the knowing of the coming of pain, and he tried again to scream defiantly at those who approached with, he noted with no surprise but still a raw fury, and some trace of fear, shock boxes. _

_His chest cavity was open, the brilliant white lights and walls of the room seemed to glow off of his inner wires and circuits, and for some reason he felt cold, unbelievably cold, and again a choked back growl, his body shaking in fury and rage that they could DO this…and that they were going to again._

_He had mastered speech from listening to them, from listening to the computers, and when he had been given a voice, it had not seemed to surprise any of them that he spoke. They only ignored that factor, as they ignored seemingly everything else about him. _

_Shock boxes…he looked at the seven small boxes brimming over with energy. His head was locked into place so he could not raise it, but the boxes were only inches away, and he could even read their sides in something like dread. 1.92 AMU._

_1.92? 1.92!? The last shock box treatment had been less than a quarter of that charge, and he could only stare dumbly as one of the assistants began to settle one box inside a cavity made in his torso, the chopped off wires still slowly leaking his life force painfully into the air. _

_He shook again, hands trying to clench into fists, but even those were pinned down, monitors plugged into his wrists, reading off spark stasis, temperature, mech fluid output. The second box was locked into place in his lower torso, and his optics flared as two more were secured into place, this time around his spark. He felt himself trying to creep back, felt his spark trying to scream and edge away as a third and then fourth were locked in, surrounding him, as more monitor wires were inserted into the boxes, recording their readouts in dead monotone._

_It was not a simple gag that bound his voice mute, but a rigid restraint over both his throat, compressing on his vocal box enough to crack it, mech fluid leaking down, swallowing it was bitter. Another restraint latched his mouth closed; he could not even open or close it, only try to bite, but even a bit had been placed inside him. Biting onto it to express his pain was rewarded with more; the bit was like all those from the past, plugged into the shock boxes. One snap on it to even pretend to relieve pain would rocket his mouth and throat with the same power as that which surrounded his spark and now filled his body._

_He was determined to keep his optics on, determined to see which scientists had planned THIS experiment, but when the assistant did the first test-run, he could not keep from shrieking, his body suddenly alive with foreign energy, such electricity strong enough to melt the boxes' wires into his body. In reflex he bit down on the only thing he could, and the recording machines were rewarded with another audio-splicing scream, his body taut with agony, his spark screeching and blinking, shuddering as it reached for whatever haven it could find and only found more torment. _

_He was not aware when the actual testing began, only that when it was over, and his chronometer told him hours had passed by that time, after the boxes were removed, some of their wires having to be cut, for they had welted onto his armor, but when it was finally over and he was back in his cell, he tried to go into recharge, only to find the gags were still in place, and he went in screaming._

_Time later and there were still screams, and he could never fully speak of the relief that it was not him, for once, that was screeching in such a way. No…no, he was free now, he would never be used as a test subject again, he was alive and he was __free__. The same could not be said for the bot in front of him…and behind him, and to his sides, splattered on the walls, the mech fluid, sticky silver gold plastering on the otherwise dull support beams._

"_Where is he?" X demanded. He had kept his name, or part of it at least. The 'Protoform' he had dropped, but X…in some perverse way he liked that. In a way, it almost sounded like the mortal sound of disconnect, as a spark twisted into the fading darkness, usually shrieking. "WHERE is he?"_

_The bot, or what remained of him, largely torso and head, only stared back with the dumbness of those all too aware that they are dying fast. Not fast enough, of course, he was skilled and practiced in keeping these worthless toys alive. No, not worthless. They did have worth, they were amusing, especially when they tried to escape as this one had. Tossing a smaller bot, a child, at X, and then running…it was not a novel approach, but hearing the child screech for its father while its father raced away certainly was. A quick twist and the brat had shut up, its spark too wrenched in metal to continue._

_X was losing patience. "WHERE is he, I said? Tell me…and I'll let you die."_

_The bot stared back, optics flashing as they surged and failed. Mortal starlight of metal. "…I…I…"_

_It was stuck, X realized with a smirk, and his fist compressed on the bot's throat, piercing shrieks his reward as he peeled back layers of metal to reveal the damaged vocal unit. "Speak, or you'll live the longest."_

"_Duh…Deh…DepthCharge," gagged the bot, optics flashing wildly as X placed a large digit on the unit, pressing lightly. Another inch of pressure and his finger would be out the back of its throat. _

"_I'm not looking for him," X said quietly. "I said Meagos."_

"_Me…me…Meagos," gagged the bot again, shuddering, circuits sparking as X slightly increased the pressure. The unit squealed, strained. The bot screamed, or tried to, jerking in panic as X relaxed his grip. Let it talk. Go on, little toy, speak your mind._

"_Issssssssssss," hissed the bot, its optics trying to flash on again, but perpetually dead. Across the room, it might have seen its arms plastered in artistic pose on the wall._

_X pressed on the unit, and it squealed as the bot's throat burst like an organic anything with pressure of any kind, the unit shattering on the ground, and he dropped the bot without further interest. He had already had his suspicions, and while the bot might have lied, chances were, combined with its words and what he already knew, it was the truth._

_Meagos. DepthCharge. Meagos is. It did not take a genius to realize they were the same. _

"_So you are alive," X said quietly as he surveyed what remained of Omicron's Guardian Station. He passed through the remainder of the hallway, marked and marred with body parts of the colony's finest defense (again, evidence of the irony of this thing called free life), and when he reached the end of the personnel walkway, he saw his image. There it was, on the wall, surrounded by similar images of other Guardians and the like. Worthless, and yes, these were. Stupid ideas in the first place, using rats to guard the sheep from the wolves. Ah, the beauty of taking apart a professor whose main interest was not the screams of his neighbors, but organic life. He had been rather filled with information, as well as the usual mess X had come to associate with these people._

_Meagos' image was on the wall, though the name was wrong. DepthCharge. What kind of calling was that? Only one those scientists, and here his fists clenched, squeaking and dribbling mech fluid, gold and silver rain, had given him as a replacement. He wondered in a dull way what else they had replaced…and what could NOT be taken away. _

_He studied DepthCharge, no, it was Meagos, it would always BE Meagos, and studied his optics. The face was similar, the body was similar, the optics were the exact same. They had not managed to replace him, then. Only build another glitch, another mask, a facade that had been destroyed once and had the potential to again._

_A sudden thought curled his face into a smile, and using the mech of the Guardians, he scrawled a message next to the portrait of Meagos in a new form. He knew Meagos would find it…and then perhaps the true game, the true chase would begin. As that professor (who had proven many things of interest to X, one of the greatest being a bot CAN survive for exactly half a millisecond after his spark is crushed) had said in a wonderful analogy, it was a game of cat and mouse. The mouse would be captured and the cat would be entertained with such a game, until of course, the time came to chip in the dice and call it quits. X had a vague idea that that analogy had been twisted, but it served its purpose, as had the professor. And that was one thing he had learned from Dihex Labs. Everything has a purpose. It was merely that he was to survive, and everyone else's was to not._

* * *

><p><em>He was walking…walking, walking, and it seemed the corridor he had passed in only hours before would never end. If this nightmare would never end. If…if…if only there had been some SIGN of survivors, but thus far only dead and glaring optics, torn from limbs and torsos and faces, stared back at him, faces twisted hideously, broken, come undone, and it was all he could do NOT to scream again. And again. And again…and here was his office, here was where he had taken the orders to go to a neighboring colony, to Tetridan, only hours ago. It was still as neat as when he had left it, unless you counted the headless torso left in his chair, which he did, in a morbid kind of way.<em>

_DepthCharge had heard of the word shellshocked, and this was perhaps the only time it could have been applied to himself. Others, easily…the female that discovered her mate was related to her, the child that came home to find both parental units dead, the countless bots who could not accept their relatives and friends were killed-_

_*there's that word again*_

_-on a shuttle crash. Shellshocked. Disbelief, un belief, but there was nothing else to do but realize this was real, this was all there was, this was…_

_A message. Something scrawled on the wall, and he stared at it in continued shock, not seeing it for several minutes, only dimly realizing it was written in the mech of his fellow Guardians. Like Fastfall…whoever had done this had ripped his throat apart, dismembered him, and left him in the hallway to die. DepthCharge knew it had not been a fast death, but he could still hope._

_Whoever had done this…this monster, this beast, and DepthCharge knew even as he finally saw and read the message, that it was not over, that Dihex had failed, that it was too late and too early, that it was never over, perhaps._

_He stared and he stared at the message, written in Fastfall's mech fluid in large, careful, dribbling hands, digits huge and sprawling: Here, kitty kitty._

DepthCharge had enough control over himself not to bolt awake. This time. Other times there simply _was_ no control, nor even an illusion of it.

"Here, kitty kitty," he growled, blinking at the console ahead of him. He dully realized he had gone into recharge mode again while at work, plotting Predacon patrol paths, trying to find where X would strike next, where he would be next, and how to use the terrain against the monster.

_Here, kitty kitty, indeed. The sole message left, and even though it would take High Command and Dihex Labs nearly two days to piece everything together, he knew, had known perhaps even from the sight of the first body. It was no rogue killer, it was not politics, it was not an accident. It was Protoform X._

He glared at the console screen, which showed a jagged and rocky mountain range. Days before X (or Rampage, whatever you wanted to call him now, the names did not matter, the beast did) had patrolled that range, and DepthCharge, knowing chances of him doing so again so soon were low, still could not help but check.

_This is eating you alive_, sneered a voice, and he stepped on it, crushing it without mercy or thought.

_Then it deserves to. Omicron…and Rugby…and everyone else in between._

It was not his fault for the massacres, but High Command, and partially Dihex Labs that X was even alive today.

_He should have been destroyed when he was recaptured. The second time._

_The second time? Oh…yes._

Yet another example of the lack of security at Dihex Labs; DepthCharge found it difficult to believe he had ever supported the laboratories, much less the scientists working them. Protoform X had escaped not once, but _twice_. _TWO_ times in the space under six months, and somehow after the first escape and recapture, security had not been increased, only the experiments had, as though the scientists feared losing him again before their studies were sated. And somehow the first escape and recapture never made it to the general public, nor even High Command. The second time, the second time X had been free for over three months, evading his captors and slaughtering everything in his path and wake. Only then, at the second recapture, had High Command realized Dihex was inadequate to the task of keeping the beast under bars.

_But they still underestimated him_, came a low growl DepthCharge was far too used to. Yes, yes, they _had_ underestimated X, they had underestimated everything. Rather than try and _destroy_ the protoform, they had sent X into stasis, to be left somewhere barren, dead, lifeless. Leaving him awake in stasis for eternity. But that was not enough, there was too much _danger_ in that route, and it seemed that only DepthCharge could see it.

And ironies of irony that X's pod had ended with Primal, one of the very bots who had insisted X be destroyed, once. Overnight, he had changed his voice and vote, declaring it "safer for Cybertron and future generations" for X to be left in stasis and dropped off like an unwanted child. And when Megatron had stolen the Golden Disk, Primal had, naturally, followed…and allowed X's pod to be ejected with the rest of the normal crew. And who could have guessed that X would survive that quantum surge, that he would indeed have survived at _all?_

DepthCharge, who did not know vital statistics on pods, _did_ know that when X was involved, the only chances possible were for continued bloodshed and death. X would survive no matter the odds or stats; that was why he had been made, after all. From what DepthCharge understood from Dihex's logs, X was the first and last protoform undergoing spark immortality treatments. The only downside was that the treatments had made the protoform insane, cruel, a monster.

"He should have _never_ been put in a pod," DepthCharge hissed, a line of poetry he had rehearsed to death, and then some, and that was when his ComLink began to beep, its light glowing and blinking red.

Irritated, he clicked it on, his optics flaring dully as Primal's voice came on. "DepthCharge?"

"What do you want, Primal."

There was a hesitant pause, and DepthCharge allowed himself a tiny victory. He might have been marooned on ancient Earth with a crew of idiotic Maximals engaging in some pointless war with a band of criminals, and X was free and loosed again (in a way, of course, and DepthCharge was not quite sure of his opinion of that drool Megatron either), but on the good side, Primal had _finally_ admitted his mistake with X.

DepthCharge had to take his victories where he could.

"Sentinel is picking up some odd energy activity in Sector Tallories. Will you check it out?"

"I'm busy."

"DepthCharge-"

"Listen to me, ape. I said I am _busy!_"

Optimus was silent for a moment. "And you will listen to me, DepthCharge. You can't defeat Rampage alone, and it's insane to try-"

"Talk to me about Omicron, Primal, and _then_ you can talk about insane." DepthCharge struck the link button, cutting it off with a slow glower. Small victories, and he took them where he could, but he would much rather have X.

Even Rattrap knew better to comment to Optimus after a link to 'Captain Minnow,' but there were times, when that natural defense didn't come in.

Thankfully, Rhinox felt privately, Rattrap was working on the autoguns, leaving him as Optimus' target for now. But Rhinox was more than used to it, and understood all too well Primal's point of view about the colony Omicron. Unfortunate to happen, yes, should have been prevented, yes, but compared to a few hundred lives, fighting to keep the _Ark_ safe was much more important. Omicron could and would have to wait.

Unfortunately, DepthCharge did not feel the same way.

"What are we going to do with him," sighed Optimus wearily.

"Let things continue as they are, more than likely," Rhinox commented, bringing up monitor shots of the ship's hull. Rattrap was trying very enthusiastically to wire an autogun barrel to its fixture with adhesive tape.

"He just-"

"I know, Optimus, I know." He opened a comm outside, nearly at second thought. "Rattrap, if that autogun falls off in the next battle, I'll wire it to your head."

"Eh, sure, Rhinox." Rhinox allowed himself a small grin as Rattrap redoubled his efforts to reattach the barrel with twice as much adhesive.

Optimus barely watched the actions of two of his more stable crew members. He found his optics drawn to Sector Tallories, its usual blue-green forests drawn in black and gray tones on the monitor. The energy surge was still happening, and he realized that DepthCharge would be out there very quickly. Not because Optimus had asked, and asked nicely at that, not because the surge would interest him, but because Rampage did.

* * *

><p>Patrol held no interest for Rampage, but if that meant there was more time away from that lizard tyrant, and hopefully <em>less<em> time in agony from his spark, he would trek nearly anywhere.

Sector Argon, however, was not a place he would have chosen for anyone, no matter how much he despised those others. The place bordered a tropical wasteland of tar pits and sinking, dying plantlife. The stench was unbelievable, even to his sensors, and the winds carried it for miles.

Yet he patrolled, if only because there was no real choice, and because Megatron had not squeezed his infernal box in half a day, and Rampage was leaning for a new record of twenty-four hours _without_ such agony. It could happen, he supposed.

Chances of _that_, he knew, were as likely as…as…as nearly anything remotely positive happening to him. Chances of Megatron _not_ tormenting him for one entire day were as good as…as…

"As that glitch coming undone," Rampage spoke, and until the birds around him took off in a flurry of blue, he had not realized he had spoken aloud. He paused, allowing his antennae to pick up any new currents of information, but, no, the birds had flown because of his voice. The world here was dead in silence.

_Like Omicron after I left that message_, he thought wryly, and continued onward.

The place was still silent, save for the rustling of his crab legs over deadfall. The natural rust of the neighboring wasteland seemed to be overflowing into this otherwise pleasant place. He stepped over a mound of eerie green ants; he didn't usually, but his last encounter with these mutants had left his beast form in a form of toxic overdose. To say it had been unpleasant was a vast understatement.

Rampage disliked patrol for many reasons, and one of them was the fact that he could have been killing Megatron, and another more realistic (of course, he realized with a snarl) was the fact it was a dull task. Maximals rarely came out by Argon, and if they did, usually the stench drove them away. As a result, there was very little to concentrate on, and so his mind wandered to the past.

Like Cybertron. True, the majority of the time he had spent there he had no want to remember, no wish to recall the labs, the experiments, the tortures and the scientists' impassive faces to his screams, but a rare scant part of Cybertron he had enjoyed. Of course, at that rare time, he had not been solitary. Having an ally was something new to him even then, and a more alien concept now, but it had been one of the more enjoyable times of his life.

It did not do to dwell on that, however. He was a person who had little use for regret and less use for the past. Unfortunately, the past was not eager to relinquish him so easily.

_Caught in a pose that would soon litter the remains of Omicron's populous, but he had no way of knowing that at the time, he hung suspended from the wall, trying fervently to reactivate his optics, but it was as he had feared: their source supply was cut, gone, just as gone as his limbs. For some reason the scientists had removed them, hacked them away, and before his sight had vanished, he had seen them piled up carefully by the wall like instruments in a medic's bag._

"_Activate," he tried to say, but even that power was gone, there was only the sensation of being awake and in agony, his body segmented and left alive, pinned to the wall like some wall decoration. Around in the darkness, he heard the others at work, hissing, whispering, and he wondered dimly why they had allowed him to retain his audio units._

"…_Alphix…"_

"_-they said the colony was-"_

"_-a shame this had to happen-"_

"_-such a promising career-"_

"_-a HEAD in the wall, and-"_

"…_won't get away THIS time-"_

_He knew enough that they were talking about him. His trek of freedom. But it hadn't been a solitary venture now, had it? Of course not. HE didn't have a promising career, but he knew someone who had, or might have had…and such a shame that they had both been captured indeed._

_Such…a…SLAGGING shame, and he knew he would possibly never have that kind of chance again, that he would never experience freedom again. And part of him suddenly woke in alarm. If he was here, and he was like this…then where was Meagos? What had been done with him? _

_Chances were that he was alive…he had, after all, had such a promising career in the Guardians, and he had been a volunteer at Dihexaline Labs before this "accident," and these scientists and those commanders of High Command would surely not want to lose that. No, Meagos had been the model citizen until that last volunteer stunt, and now he, X, was trapped on a wall, his mech fluid a steady stream, leaking to the ground, and Meagos was…Meagos was simply gone._

Gone, and even now Rampage knew that. Or suspected it, at least. Because Meagos was in fact _not_ gone, he was not dead, and Rampage knew that too. No, he had quite a lot of evidence that High Command had indeed ordered _something _done to Meagos, because that bot was still very much alive, but he was not himself any longer. They had done something, and Rampage could only wonder how badly it had been done. But he had known for a long time that Meagos was alive. It was merely ironic how surprising life ended up being, sometimes.

He shuddered as he walked, the daydream not dreamish nor nice, only a grim reminder of how his life had been, mirroring how it was now, with only a few new rules. And, thankfully, Tarantulas was the only scientist capable of any comparable torment here, and he did not even dream of it. Or of coming close enough to ask Rampage to hold still to be strapped down.

The monstrous crab continued his patrol, and the sheer boredom of it was broken only when his radar beeped in warning. Rampage smiled.

Chances were X knew he was coming. X, Rampage, whatever you wanted to call him; it often depended on DepthCharge's mood.

_Two names for the same beast,_ he thought again as he landed, transforming, his blaster out and primed, his finger wrapped around its trigger. He was ready, but then again, he was _always_ ready. All he needed was that chance Optimus and Cheetor had had long ago: X to be locked in a stasis form. Without having Rampage's spark, DepthCharge knew he would not be able to kill him, but without a body and resources scarce, chances were unlikely Megatron could rebuild an adequate replacement.

His radar system, put in stealth mode, no longer beeped, but its red warning light showed X all too clearly. Less than fifty meters away, and judging from the sickening stench, he was where he belonged, in a wasteland.

_No. Where he belongs is dead_.

DepthCharge nodded to himself, more than used to that private voice of reason, a voice that perhaps was not his but worthwhile all the same. Rampage belonged dead, no doubt.

He stepped over and closer, and then the monster was in plain view, not shielded by any plants or rot of the natural world. In his beast mode still, antennae perked to attention.

"It's over, X."

"Haven't you realized," asked Rampage in a maddeningly polite voice, and here he transformed, "that it's _never_ over, Meagos?"

"It is this time," and the first blast tore away a dead hunk of tree a foot to Rampage's left. His launcher came into quick view and fired thrice, fast and repetitive, striking not DepthCharge, but the scenery around him, exploding a dry trunk into fiery dots in the air.

"It's NEVER over, Meagos! You should have realized that by now!" Rampage's face was terrible to behold, a twist of ravenous desire for the fear of the spark, although Meagos had _never_ feared him, DepthCharge did not either, a twist of want for the fear, and some alien feature on his face. It was hope, skewered and terrible, but it was there.

DepthCharge paused, and while part of him screamed that this was a trick, a falseness, and he did _know_ that, but his memory banks ached suddenly with bringing up a face to match the name. No, not a starbase, not another colony, not any person he could remember…and then he asked himself why it mattered, and returned fire.

_It's true then_, Rampage realized, but he had known forever, hadn't he? Since his second escape and breakaway to freedom, he had known and in a way had always known that this alteration of programming and self had been done on an unwilling person. He had always known, and he did not allow himself the indignity of emotion, but it was irritating still. Madness.

_But when has ANY world made sense?_

He dropped out of sight behind some deadfall as DepthCharge began firing with something new. _An…attachment! How novel. The more you've changed, the more you have stayed the same. _

And yes, it was, an attachment that allowed not one blast, but from the looks of things, up to six at once. Segmented rays from a gun shaped like a fish.

"You can't deny it!" he called out again, and was rewarded by another smoking firefall in his direction. The blasts missed again, only smearing him with ash from another exploded plant, its sap clingy in the humid atmosphere. He rose from the deadfall, and fired, letting the scorches rip the air like screaming metal, but of course he missed too; DepthCharge was simply not going to stand still today.

"Today is your LAST day alive!"

"Promises, promises, old _friend_!"

The air was burnt from the laserfire, and had things been different, perhaps DepthCharge's next blast might have detonated Rampage's launcher, or even taken a hand off, which might have led to a form of victory. And in hundreds of other incidents, that might have happened, if Megatron had not chosen that moment to release tension in the most gratifying way he knew.

Rampage was nearly dropped to his knees from the force, and he couldn't still the strangled shriek as his spark wailed, trembling from its stab wounds, the blades raw energon, calm, soothing, life-giving and death-bringing (or at least the _want_ of it, in some of his worse moments). He managed enough control to keep his finger around the trigger, releasing a final volley of energy, then collapsed to beast mode with gasping hisses; he was not aware of the other Maximal till DepthCharge's voice, raised in fury, rang over the decadence, and by then he had managed to slink away. Normally he would have attacked both Maximals, but a slight grip and shudder of agony racing through him convinced him otherwise. Either the tyrant had forgotten how to use a comm, or had decided to use more informal ways to let Rampage know patrol time was over.

Despising Megatron more than ever, he slunk away with low snarls, none of which even began to equal DepthCharge's rage.

"DepthCharge-" was all Silverbolt had time to begin to say when a blast he was not quite sure was errant, or intentional, cracked a trunk by his head in half. The Fuzor was stunned silent for a moment, but quickly rallied. "Optimus says he's found-"

The ray turned a scathing look to him, and Silverbolt, had he the imagination to, would have backed away. "I," said Omicron's Guardian, "don't give a slag WHAT Optimus says."

Diplomacy was one of Silverbolt's fortes, but he was still uncertain around the Guardian, or ex-Guardian, since he was not guarding much these days, and the Fuzor had the utmost respect for Optimus. While he, like most of the other Maximals, had tried to see DepthCharge's point of view, he could also see the ray's quest was destroying him. Convincing him of that, however, was even more difficult than persuading Blackarachnia of her true Maximal self.

"Nevertheless," Silverbolt rallied, "Optimus wants everyone back at base, and sent me to bring you. There's been a lack in the Ark's defenses located, and-"

"Did you hear me the first time, Fuzor?"

Silverbolt stared at him for another moment. "Yes," he said honestly. "But Optimus has asked-"

"Tell Optimus," growled DepthCharge, "that when I'm done with X and OPTIMUS' mistake with him, THEN I will care about the _Ark_."

"The _Ark_ is important," insisted Silverbolt, but hadn't he already known this might be a losing battle? Of course…but he would never admit that, even to himself. "Everything on Cybertron, every balance _depends_ on the _Ark_!"

DepthCharge ignored him, and the Fuzor was all too aware of it. Silverbolt internally sighed; he only had one high card to play, and he didn't desire to. Using Omicron as an excuse to defend the _Ark_ seemed more…more of Rattrap's style, no offense to him, of course.

"Did Omicron?" snarled DepthCharge nastily.

"It might have," Silverbolt said quietly, and of course he _had_ used his high card in this gamble, even if DepthCharge had been the one to put it into play. The ray stared at him for several minutes, and Silverbolt grew aware in a dim way that DepthCharge might shoot again, and this time with enough aim to do considerable damage to him.

Instead the ray transformed to vehicle mode and left. Silverbolt exhaled in relief, beastmoded and followed.

Recharge did not come easily to DepthCharge later, but it never had since Omicron and Rugby. His systems were used to recharging their systems on limited time, but for once he was exhausted enough to slip into that state without much conflict.

It was X, he knew it. Another meeting, another chance, another waste. The _Ark_ was not important, this war was not important, only X was. And had any of these idiot Maximals _been_ at either the colony or the starbase, they would realize which was the priority.

It was not even as if the _Ark_ was _going_ anywhere. Rampage, on the other hand, was all too mobile and alive. Megatron could access the _Ark_, he already had too much access to Rampage. The Predacons couldn't win any war with the _Ark_. With Rampage, it was feasible.

_As were a lot of things…or they were supposed to be, at least_, he thought wearily. Times like this, he was tired of it all. Of Optimus' pointless banter, of Rhinox's attempts at soothing his temper, at the cat's inexperience and vague stupidity, at Rattrap's irritating habits and speech problem, and Silverbolt…for just being _Silverbolt_.

He wondered vaguely about Dinobot, someone he had only known through files. Somehow on the night of his kamikaze run, Dinobot had not only managed to defeat over ninety percent of the Predacon ranks alone, he had taken Rampage down and out for a while. DepthCharge had yet to do this. Dinobot, according to records, had been armed with a basic armory, but in the end had used a Predacon, _Quickstrike_ of all things, to fill Rampage's tank blaster, thus blowing his circuits to bits. X had obviously survived, but it had taken Megatron long enough to retrieve his troops and R-tank them back to health.

_Why didn't they DO something about X then!?_ His mind raged, but it always did, and the only reason he had, other than Maximal stupidity, was that the Maximals had been too shocked over the death of the raptor. They had not even realized (_but have they ever? _his mind demanded) that they could have taken X over then. Megatron was _there_, he was _damaged_, and he had to have had the spark box to control Rampage. The Maximals could have…could have _ended_ this all already. They could have…

_But then again, if we are looking for COULD HAVES, we could go all the way back to Dihex, and wonder why the HELL no one thought to tighten restraints after his FIRST escape?_

He knew all too much about the second, which had ended with Omicron…and Rugby…and taunting DepthCharge from every location, every torn house and dismembered corpse. The first escape he honestly had not known much about; he had not even known X _existed_ until he had escaped, and after he had been recaptured, only then did DepthCharge realize X had tasted freedom and massacre once already. A colony by the name of Alphix had been destroyed, but for some reason, the files about Alphix had been labeled off-limits. Not that he had been wholly interested about Alphix. The protoform had escaped not once but _twice_, and he had destroyed far more on his second escapade. So many more lives, and for some reason DepthCharge still did _not know_, X had taunted him from each, scrawling messages and cruel words. Somehow, X knew DepthCharge, had known him _before_ Omicron…even though DepthCharge had no memories of even a protoform in Dihex Labs; X had, and did remember him.

It was an alarming thought, and one that stayed with him as recharge settled in.

_And that name. _

Knowing X, Meagos was a victim from Omicron, or from Rugby, which was entirely possible, as DepthCharge had not known every person at either site. Or perhaps he was a standalone, someone X had torn apart and left elsewhere as a further gibe. _Look here, DepthCharge, you cannot save a colony, you can't even save ONE spark!_

Yet...yet…for some reason he knew that was not so, in the same way he was alarmed by how X had known him, even when he had had no idea X ever existed. Chances were, he knew, highly unlikely anyone in Dihex had told a mere protoform about the outside world, and surely not about some remote colony or its Guardian. Yet X had left messages at both sites, naming DepthCharge…and _hinting_, taunting, scoffing about Guardians, and about _him_. It was a puzzle, and more than that, in a way it scared him.

_What does X know that I don't? Other than mercy and justice, that is. _

But what DID he know? It was a troubling thought, a bad wander onto weak ice, and he knew it.

_What does it matter_? But it did, it did in a way he could not name, and the _Axalon_ had had no files about X save the initial preliminaries. His creation at Dihex Labs, the destruction of mass life forms, as the reports worded it, and his destination: some random barren place.

_How scientific._

But it was science that had made the beast, perhaps it could destroy it as well. Energon crystals jabbed through X's spark didn't work, as DepthCharge was well aware.

_Slag it all…what does he KNOW?_

_Nothing...of course, not one damn thing._

_Those messages…_

And he had no rebuttal or excuse for them. DepthCharge slipped into recharge, but peace of mind was a long time in coming. Dreams, unfortunately, were not.

"_Here, kitty kitty," a nonsense message, a pointless one (but why else would it have been there, his mind wondered) had been repeated on three other major building around the Guardian Station, and on several walls, optic-aching images of organic cats, as well as some very badly done scratches that DepthCharge supposed were rodents, had been scratched and dented into the armor of corpses. A nonsense message, and he knew it, but somehow it was not, somehow it meant the world._

_Or at least the part of it that contained Omicron._

_There was another message scrawled in the steps leading to the station. Several hands with broken fingers, most of them missing the last final joints, bloody with mech fluid, had been used as the instruments, and they rested where they had been flung, in piles, at random. _

_**But it's only one**__, read the message, and somehow that was worse than the one about domestic organic animals. In the same way the murdered Guardians were somehow worse than the civilians…but he shook his head at that thought. No, no, the Guardians had been armed. It had not helped them any._

_He stared, not aware that he was no longer on the colony's site, that he was back on Cybertron, that the images replaying in his mind eternally were also being played on nearby monitors, the lead security panel of Cybertron wincing, many of them looking ill. He was not aware that several members of the panel were talking at him, trying to talk TO him and failing…no, he was not aware of any of those things any more than he was aware someone he would soon be tracking was tracking HIM, he was unaware of all these things, except a dead dread feeling inside about a starbase he had visited recently, a dull sensation of Omicron, and then only the closing feeling of a whispered phrase from a then-unknown scientists from Dihexaline Laboratories: Protoform X…Protoform X…has escaped…_

* * *

><p>It had been another failure today, but Rampage had had no expectations of anything else. He had lived too long to accept success as a high ratio.<p>

But the reminder was a cold, aching sore inside him, an emotion (_is THAT what those things are?_) of fury not at his current enslavement, a novelty in itself. No…here was the anger of the denied, of those all too aware that justice was only a word and not one with value.

_I wonder what they did to him_, he wondered vaguely as he studied the monitors before him with barely disguised contempt. To be called in from patrol because he had been "taking too long" for _this_…an assignment even Waspinator found difficult to mistake with. _I wonder just what they did. Reprogramming? That sounds about right…and of course when Megatron does it, it is a travesty. When High Command…or Dihex scientists do it…it's a miracle and beautiful._

He found himself snarling at the screen, his tone low so the tyrant would not hear. After the last compressing, and due to his current mood, he was not in any order to take another squeeze. Megatron, however, did not seem bored for once, but was yelling at Waspinator.

The wasp buzzed back in his irritating fashion, and Rampage tried to put them both out from his mind. That was surprisingly easy, but then again, he had had experience for several long years of ignoring people…or being ignored as a person.

A failure today. Yes, but had he expected anything else?

"ZZZo then Wazzpinator went to Zzector Omega and-"

_Perhaps. Perhaps not._

"-no Maximalzz-"

_Today was the first day I called him, of course. _And it had been, and perhaps in some unrealistic part of his spark and self, he had expected that to matter.

"-but Wazzpinator DID zzzee-"

He found his mind wandering again, and it was only when a monitor blanked out to static and then to a dull white from lack of power (it was Tarantulas at work, and he knew that in a dim way) did the full force of it hit him, and he could only stare at it, and stare. He was still looking at it, nearly trapped as a moth in the force of the sunlight, when Megatron called him the only way he enjoyed five minutes later.

_The coming of the white! The white, the light, and then darkness suddenly, and he realized that someone had cut the power cords to his optics again. But for once he didn't care, only the rage that was eternal exploded back at them, and he could feel himself screaming this time, and even as his body was shocked tight with power, a fist slammed into the table. He realized in that split second of mirroring agony that he HAD been able to make a fist this time…that his fist could move…that someone had not strapped his lower arm limb down tightly, and that was all he needed to realize. _

_Even as the second wave of shock jerked through his systems like a living viral, even as someone began to scream, his right arm busted and was free, the shackles falling to the floor like so much old wiring, garbage, trash, and he flung his freed limb outward, striking and knocking over the shock box generator, hearing the screams, and even blind as he was, he was able to rip his other arm's restraints, and chest torso ones free and to the ground. By the time he was sitting up on the operations table, the generator had started smoking, and by the time the guards were racing inside, it had exploded, due to him picking it up and flinging it into their masses. By that time his optics came back on again, if only because he ripped out his missing connecting piece from a dead guard, and by then someone had finally thought to close down the room. This movement came two minutes too late as X ripped the field generator from the wall, and all power to the room died, the automatic security system fading before it even came online. _

_Screams and shouts and gunshots, but by that time the protoform known only as X had escaped the operations room, smashing the once-brilliant lights overhead with limbs as he fled, leaving a battalion of security behind him, and only the image of freedom, tasted once and now bittersweet, in his mind, and even as those left alive were destroyed on the passage out, he was gone and he was free. And he was determined not to be captured again…almost, in a way, like a marking he had seen on a guard's armor: Death Before Dishonor. Or, in his case, Death (which was impossible at any rate) Before Slavery._

_But that of course was before he was recaptured…but after Omicron, after Rugby, and most importantly, after finding Meagos again…or what was left of him._

His spark still aching, as it always was, but he had at least managed not to shriek this time, only scream and clutch his chest (_the usual motions_, he thought sardonically), Rampage returned to his quarters in beast mode. There were a few reasons he was pleased with an alternate mode, and not only his tank one. The beast mode allowed him much more freedom, at least in terms of speed, and while hands were excellent, claws were also interesting as torture items. As well, on those frequent times when Megatron wanted to see how long he could remain standing while being compressed, being in beast mode gave him a less of a fall.

It was also more comfortable, in some arcane way, to recharge in beast mode. He settled in his empty quarters, head resting on his claws, antennae lowered not in disinterest but the continual wrath he seemed to always be in.

_I wonder how they would like it_, he thought again with a low snigger laugh. _I do wonder…it would be very…entertaining to test out._

It was dark in his quarters, as he nearly always had it. In Dihex, it had always been the opposite, even in his sleeping cell, on those few times he had used it over the years.

_And Dihex…it would certainly amuse those scientists to NO end to see me like this now…not a slave to a greater idea or mere experiments, but a madman who sees only a living weapon. And while I despise that…it is much better than what they had planned. Up past 1.92, no less._

Dihexaline Laboratories, its official name. He knew that name all too well. In his second escape, he had ripped those letters declaring the building to be so from the walls, and used them in very…interesting ways to pin the head scientists in very numerous positions around the main hall. It had been a fast and nearly messy job, but what else could one expect from these creatures that leaked mech fluid with one hit?

Dihex…he wondered if DepthCharge remembered anything about the place. It _had_ once been a very large facility with several government-sponsored projects, all going on at once usually, but there was never a shortage of them, from weapons systems to new stasis pod ideas to…well, to protoforms like himself, he was certain, though Rampage had done his research. His spark had been the only one to survive the creation process, otherwise Dihex might have upped security with over twelve protoforms with his prowess.

Dihex was famous for its inventions, the least of which had been himself. But of course, no one had really _known_ about that project…

Rampage did not believe he was plagued by nightmares. He insisted they were merely memories, and that was true as well. Recharge to him came very easily, unlike DepthCharge, because unlike DepthCharge, Rampage had no regrets. At least none that he could find the solutions to easily. Unlike DepthCharge, Rampage was able to recharge without guilt, but like DepthCharge, dreams were not as easy to accept with grace.

_He had finally gotten his vocal cords and circuits back, for reasons as always unknown to him, and as well for once the shock cords were not in place around them. He was free, in a limited, torn and terrible kind of way, to speak. He had never really spoken to any of these people before, none of the scientists and none of the technicians, not for fear of doing so, but lack of anything coherent to say._

_He tried now. He knew speech now, at least, and rage overcame his usual snarls and growls, a cold, cooling feeling of controlled fury. It was a new sensation._

"_Where is he?" he asked, barely able to keep the hatred from his voice. If the technician sensed any level of that, X was certain he would be ignored, perhaps even have his vocal cords electrified enough to melt them again._

_The technician, however, looked at him with some amusement. X had been free enough to have seen other bots look at captives like that before. A free bot watching some trapped organic animal in an air bubble box called a zoo. He had seen the organic creature jump around in its fake environment, and the watchers clapped and cheered, watching it with barely disguised amusement over its stupidity for thinking it was happy. X, on the other hand, knew he was not happy; he was the farthest thing from that word as he knew possible._

"_Who?" asked the technician, smiling, but then again he could afford to; X was so clapped in restraints he could barely feel his lower form. The restraints cut through his armor in some weaker spots, leaving cords and circuits open in the freezing room._

"_Meagos." There, he had said it, he had finally said it, and he could only hope against reality that this technician would not lie. He had no guarantees even if the bot was telling the truth._

"_Meagos?"_

"_Yes." A strained hiss._

_And here the technician leaned closer with that amused look still, and now a very cruel yet happy smile. "He's dead."_

_That had silenced him, and even as his inner mind screamed that this was a lie, it was not so, that they would not have destroyed such a promising person, had he not just heard others talking about him, he could only stare back, silent and shuddering in denial._

_He's dead, said the technician, and it would be nearly a year before X could prove otherwise, but by then the technician's words had come true._


	2. Chapter 2

Cat and Mouse

_Cat and mouse_

_tis but a feast…_

_For want of a nail, a horseshoe was lost. For want of a horseshoe, the horse was lost. For want of a horse, the rider was lost. For want of a rider, the message was lost. For want of a message, the battle was lost. For want of a battle, the kingdom was lost, and all for the want of a horseshoe nail._

_Author Unknown_

The steps leading up to Dihexaline Laboratories were solid steel, but for some alien reason, they were not silver, but an eerie purple-blue with white. Any bot who might have studied ancient Earth history would have realized instantly the steps were steel, but coated with fine color to imitate Roman marble.

Meagos was not one of those rarities among bots; he knew Earth had once been important in the far past with the Autobots, but as of recent times, the nuclear wasteland was not any place he found important, much less interesting. The human race had long since dispersed from that world, and if he had known of the imitation on the steps, he would have thought nothing of it at any rate. Earth was Earth, Cybertron was Cybertron, and mixing the two was the work of designers with far too much time on their hands.

_And this we'll defend_, he thought darkly with the hint of a smile. Not that he despised or even mildly disliked designers; he knew they had their place on Cybertron, just as he did. But he had been coming to Dihexaline, or Dihex, as it was more commonly referred to, for nearly a year and had witnessed the construction of these oddly colored steps. Privately, he liked the previous color, which had been a stark silver gray. But the specialist walking with him adored the new color scheme, and so Meagos smiled and let the technician prattle on about worthless facts.

_He knows weapon systems. I don't think he has claim on anything else._

"I think it looks interesting," added Dragon, and Meagos nodded again. He was a little more than used to Dragon, but the turnover rate at Dihex was not overly high, merely enough that Meagos was never certain who he would be speaking to that day. Not that he had come to the labs often, but his Commander had advised him on several occasions to find a wealthy advocate, and Dihex seemed as good as any.

Plus there was always the chance of volunteerism paying off, as it was today. The few times he had actually worked in Dihex on that basis, he had done nothing more than scan over profiles of new weapons, participated in a stasis pod demonstration, and done minor paperwork. Today was the day the menial help ended, and Meagos for one was pleased about that. Not that Dihex was an unpleasant place, but the sooner he got through basic training, the sooner he would get through advanced, and by then he would be a full Guardian, with some help from Dihex. Working for the labs was a certain way to have High Command approve of his application for Colonial Guardwork, since the labs were High Command's own.

"It does," Meagos dutifully agreed, and by that time they had reached the top of the hideous stairs and were at the massive doors to the building. Twice as tall as Meagos, they gleamed of blue crystal, again imitation, but in this case, of energon. They contrasted nicely with the gray of the walls, and were entirely Cybertronian. Meagos passed through them with barely an inner wave of excitement; his time for paperwork was over. Only three days ago someone had called him to say they had an opening in the experimental weapons division. He would be the first, the secretarial technician had said, to have this system installed, and the first to test it as a user.

_Which means something else presumably tested it first_, he thought, and for a moment his mind ran amok with images of dead and dying test subjects, then slammed those closed. It was a safe procedure, and he knew that. Test subjects were just that, and he knew for a fact (having helped repair them) droids filled the lab halls, and surely in the test subject lines.

He watched Dragon out of the corner of an optic. The smaller red bot was chattering away again, this time to another technician, about something called the Beta Project. Meagos internally sighed and waited.

_The sooner I get this done…the sooner I can be on my own colony._

_Dragon…_

He knew a little of mythology, at least, thanks to a class in early schooling. A dragon was a flying fire machine, though organic, and was rumored to have been both malicious, cruel, and very intelligent. The bot named after that creature was surely the last trait, but trying to imagine the technician as anything but his chattery self was a stretch. Meagos tried seeing Dragon flame someone as the mythological lizards had, and of course the image came up far too short. The best he could make was Dragon exhaling smoke from an internal injury.

"Are you ready, Meagos?" The red chatterbox beamed at him, and again he nodded, hoping Dragon was not in charge of the installation. He was grateful to Dihex for using him in this project, but he didn't think he could stand another hour with Dragon.

"Let's get you prepped then." Dragon started off down a hallway like every other: lined with black doors, the walls and arched ceiling a dull gray. Meagos followed, and slowly the arcane and sinking feeling of being watched came over him, which was nonsense, really. The few security cameras he could see were certainly not watching for him to leave the labs, if in fact he wanted to. But the sensation of more cameras than he could see continued as they walked down, stepping into a lift, and began to ascend.

"Did anyone tell you about Ylleria?"

"No." As a matter of fact, all he had been told was that Project Ylleria was that it was a new weapon system, an internal system that would allow for greater radar and more blasters. Both of those would aid him immensely in his training and career, and Meagos was well aware of that.

"Well, it's a new system the guys in Defense cooked up…" And off he was again, prattling on not about the system, but the 'guys' in Defense. Meagos listened dully and with half an audio; it was not that Dragon was boring, but his tales were pointless. Meagos was never going to meet these techs, and he had no want to.

Dragon talked without pause until the lift reached the seventh floor, and only then did he shut up about the techs in Defense, not their projects, their families, their names, personal items Meagos found tedious. The doors to the lift thankfully opened then, and he stepped out quickly, but Dragon was still faster as he led the future Guardian down another endless hallway, and then finally to a crimson door with an armed guard on each side.

Meagos raised an eye-arch; he had never seen guards of any kind in Dihex before…but of course, this _was_ the experimental system level, and it certainly wouldn't do for such things to fall into the wrong hands.

"Identification," said one guard, showing all the charisma of a dead Predacon; Meagos wondered if the bot had any intelligence other than what was needed to beat people, or shoot them dead.

Dragon pulled out a hand-sized circuit, which the guards scanned with small tools, then nodded, satisfied with the talkbot at least. They then turned to Meagos, who dutifully presented his own identification circuit and was allowed to enter the room after two scans, one of them with the same as Dragon's, then another which Dragon insisted was normal for civilians.

_I won't be that much longer_, Meagos thought with a grin. Guardians were part of the military, the same as nearly everyone at Dihex. Of course, people like Dragon, he felt privately, were surely nothing more than weapons designers in the war.

The room they had entered in was actually another hallway, this one short and with green lights overhead, casting the silver walls with eerie shadows. They were inspected and passed through yet another checkpoint, and finally reached the end room, where two bots met them. One of them was obviously another guard, though he did not appear to be armed. The second was a bot slightly smaller than Dragon, with gold optics that seemed to pick over every paint scratch on Meagos' form.

"I am Slydar," said the tech with gold optics. "I'll be the head technician in your installation today, Meagos."

"And this is?" Meagos nodded politely to the guard. A part of him was beginning to wonder what the grand secret was.

"The backup. I'm Crizos." He offered his hand, which Meagos shook.

_So not a guard_. Crizos didn't have the handshake of a guard, and was in fact marked with the identification of a backup technician. But still the sheer amount of guards around was a bit…disturbing? Meagos decided that word worked the best.

"Relax," beamed Dragon as he patted Meagos on the shoulder. Meagos imagined himself smashing the annoyance into the wall, but of course that was only a stray thought. He often had those, but never acted on them. Guardians couldn't do such things. "You're in good hands, Meagos."

"I hope so," he said with a grin, and of course the technicians chuckled dutifully. Dragon left after another idiotic flurry about wanting to see Meagos after the installation, to see how well his systems reacted with it, and other pointless smalltalk. Meagos was very relieved when the red bot was finally out of his sight.

"Ready?" Slydar opened the final door; inside, under brilliant operation lights, was a white room, three side tables filled with instruments and circuitry on the side. A very large metal operation table was in the center of the room, and Meagos entered it without fear, the techs following.

"As I'll ever be," Meagos remarked calmly, taking in the stark white walls (_what IS it with white rooms in this place?_) and tools without interest. He laid down on the table, watching curiously as Crizos removed some outer armor on his upper chest; the act itself was painless, but Meagos was far from used to people touching him in such a vulnerable area. He felt himself tighten, but Crizos only moved two major energon veins to the surface of the slightly chilly room, then attached to their sides small adhesive probes. From the probes came two clear tubes, and by turning his head, Meagos could see that the tubes were themselves attached to energon supply beakers.

"You may feel some temporary discomfort, but the installation shouldn't take more than an hour," Crizos said brightly, parting more secondary circuits aside as Slydar entered, his body gleaming still with disinfectant. Slydar would of course be doing the most of the installing, and chances of his inner circuits getting dirty or damaged was not one Dihex took lightly, especially not with someone as promising as Meagos.

Meagos nodded; it could take all day for all he cared right now. He wanted this system almost to the point of being angry it had been denied to him thus far. Crizos continued to set up side tables with the needed instruments, a large steel box that surely contained the parts of the new system wires being settled carefully on a larger one. Meagos let his mind free in the room, staring at the sheer white brightness of it all…save for a small metal grating near the floor he could barely see.

_Ventilation,_ he thought easily, and that was when a teeny echo-y wail rang throughout it, leaking out softly from the vent and into the room. Meagos blinked; the technicians had not reacted.

_I'm hearing things._

_No…it might very well be plausible that someone stupid got hurt a few floors down. _That was very much a chance, and Meagos knew it. The shafts were excellent conductors of sound.

"We're going to put you in stasis now, Meagos," clipped Slydar as he approached, a gleaming tool that looked far too much like a blade used for slicing steel hunks for Meagos' liking. But it was too late to back out now, of course, and he nodded, drawn back to things of the hopeful future.

"When I wake up, be all nice and shiny new?" he asked with a sardonic grin. Crizos smiled, but Slydar appeared not to have heard.

"Quite," said Slydar several minutes later, removing a panel on Meagos' side. The future Guardian waited with faint apprehension, not enjoying the slight violation, but then again, if he was going to be so sensitive, he knew he could just walk away from his dream of colonial defense now. So instead he waited, optics dimming, and then shut off entirely as Slydar pulled a circuit free, dropping him into stasis.

"Time."

"Zero two four ninety." Crizos counted, and they began to remove the rest of Meagos' outer plating to expose the sensitive circuitry wires beneath.

* * *

><p>Nearly thirty stories below, the technician hurriedly slammed the grate shut, but according to Ivex, it was nearly too little, too late. Of course, Commander Ivex said those kind of things a lot.<p>

"No one heard, Ivex," came the irritated voice from a console monitor. The red bot was watching readouts with some interest; never before had they used shock boxes, what the minor technicians called them at least, of such magnitude of power. They had always stayed below a full AMU, but here at nearly double that, it was amazing the protoform was still even conscious.

"I don't care that no one heard. It's slips like that which could cost us this project!"

Dragon rolled his optics in irritation; Ivex was always worried about breaching security as well. "Ivex, this place is a fortress. No one can get down here, and much more, no one unauthorized can get out." He nodded pointedly at the console monitor, where the protoform had been restrained and was even now trying to scream again. Someone had thought _after_ the first screeching episode to gag it.

It, him, those words didn't matter, and Ivex and Dragon were all too aware of it. Some of the lesser technicians had even _named_ the project. X. Protoform X. Dragon supposed it worked; it certainly was easier than calling the protoform 'it' all the time. But by naming it…that was dangerous, in his mind. Things that were named were seen as worthwhile things. Items. People had names. Objects did not. But _projects_ only had names because it was easier to distinguish them from each other. That was the defense he stood by. A name was harmless. People _thinking_ a name meant something would be the culprit.

"We're at 1.91 AMU, sir," came a report from a ComLink on the keypad. Dragon glanced at Ivex, who was not even paying attention, but was looking over another monitor displaying security tapes over the past twenty hours.

"Sir?"

"Raise it," Dragon said smoothly. "Let's aim for two."

On the screen, the protoform was trying to scream again, his body barely writhing in pain from the restraints, and Dragon watched with scientific interest and detachment as the protoform shrieked, and then went still, the room filling with dark smoke and the unpleasant stench of melted circuitry and wires and metal.

"Nice," Dragon said after a pause. "Wake it now. Fix some of those wires, and let's try it again."

The technicians nodded, and began work on waking the protoform. First, of course, they had to remove the shock boxes and over half of the protoform's systems. Melted and damaged, they were thrown away.

* * *

><p>"Slydar?"<p>

The head technician sighed; he was up to his elbow joints in wires, and reconnecting them to the central computer system that was Meagos was not a task he could do with divided attention. "What?"

"I'm having a problem here with the psi chip here." Crizos glanced up from his monitor, where he was watching the operation from a bystander's view.

Slydar snarled to himself, settling the wires down in a harmless place, and stalked over to see the screen. Indeed, an image of the new psi chip was on the screen, and the console read in bright green letters: DAMAGED PSI ROUTE 50432.

This time the snarl reached his audios, and he sighed. "Fine. We need a new one. Go down to the chip lab and get us one. NOW. It's not like we're not in a rush here."

Crizos hurried off with a slightly apprehensive look, but Slydar only shook his head in exasperation. The psi chip missing was not life threatening, but now having to find a new one, and one that would MATCH, had just extended the operation and installation by perhaps another hour, even two.

_So much for my free time this afternoon_, he thought wearily, and went back to work sorting the new circuits to connect them to the old.

In fact it took two hours merely to _find_ a psi chip that matched the new system. During that time, Slydar had spent a very nerve-racking duration keeping the circuits activated and functional, and by the time the psi chip was brought back and tested and rested, the installation was back underway.

And it was nearly completed less than an hour later. The final processes were running checks over the connection system pieces when Slydar announced he needed a break, which Crizos felt he well deserved. The head technician left for a ten minute rest, and that was, naturally, when the scanning monitor announced it had found a glitch.

"Installment paused," declared the monitor, and Crizos, who had been relaxing after a very unusually stressful project, looked up in some alarm. One glance over the monitor proved that his worry was not worthwhile; a minor glitch had been found in some core programming. "Core code 01986 missing."

"Not for long," muttered Crizos in annoyance as he reopened the monitor's screen shots to reveal the cause of the problem. Hm, and there it was, merely a line of programming that, for some reason, had been laid over another. A dual strand where only one could or should be.

_Interesting that no one else has picked this up before_, he thought, but then again, Meagos' files showed that since his activation years ago, no new programs had been installed in his central system, and having routine system scan checkups wouldn't pick up such fragile details. It took an entire system bypass scan to even catch its existence, much less fix it.

"Core code 01986 missing," repeated the monitor as an image displaying the installation process blinked, declaring itself unable to continue until the right amount of code was present.

_A glitch in programming_, thought Crizos without much wonder, and deleted the foremost code. A simple scan revealed that this code _had_ been added after Meagos' activation, but surely it wasn't worthwhile. Most core codes in that numerical system weren't.

The offending code deleted, the installation continued, and when Slydar returned, he was informed of the second code. He only nodded; he would have done the same thing.

"Sometimes we get those," he said simply. "Usually a core system tosses up a mutated code in response to an alien item inside the system. Could be a virus, could be a viral, could merely be dust. Nothing to worry about."

Crizos thought about telling the other technician that the second code, the foremost code, had been added soon after Meagos' activation, but thought nothing much of that factor either. Virus, viral, and dust indeed.

* * *

><p>"Is it awake yet?" Dragon's voice boomed over the intercom system in the system pit, where six technicians were adding the finishing touches on the protoform, strengthening its restraints. Several of the last ones had melted on its chest and torso, binding its arms to the table. They had since been replaced.<p>

"Not yet, Captain," came the steady response from the pit floor. "We just finished substituting his central circuitry bar. The last one was destroyed."

A pause. Then Dragon's voice, cool and collected; Meagos would have merely stared in shock. "Do what you have to. Then wake him. The hard way, the easy way, it does not matter. He just has to be awake."

Dragon was aware that Ivex was staring at him. He returned an equally baleful glare. "What."

"You called the protoform _he_."

Dragon waved a hand dismissively. "Everything in our world is divided by gender. It's only natural to assume the protoform is of one. Scans show it is a he, at the very least."

"I don't care what scans say," Ivex said coldly. "I care what others think of it. It's a protoform, Dragon. It would do you good to remember that."

"It's not a person, I know." Dragon's optics gleamed. "I was the first _person_ to say so, wasn't I?"

Ivex nodded uneasily. The line between object and person, he knew, was fine indeed. Naming the protoform, the object, the _experiment_, was not a close call he cared to repeat or remember. "It would do you good to remember that," he merely repeated, and waited for it to awaken again.

_Oh, would it?_ wondered Dragon thoughtfully as he watched not the pit, not X, but Ivex. _Or does it bother you that there might be some random chance a tech named the protoform after a letter in YOUR name? It's…he's, whatever, not named Protoform D or R, now, is it?_

He turned his attention back to the protoform. Indeed, it was still in a stasis mode. Its inner wiring had been replaced nearly good as new, or as new as could be made within the time frame. Its emerald green optics were blank and dead and faded; the restraints on the protoform were new and freshly strong. It would not do to try with a higher AMU with the boxes if no one had sufficiently tied the protoform down.

Dragon watched impassively as some of the technicians removed several of the shock boxes. During the last surge charge, the supposed never-ending boxes of energy and electricity needed to be recharged. It was, he thought, enough to make one despair about science.

* * *

><p><em>He was floating…floating in this darkness, and part of him realized that he was floating IN himself, or in his mind, in that darkness that was his unconscious self.<em>

_Hmmmmmm, he went, and suppressed a laugh. How odd to laugh and hear it without audios, only with your spark. He laughed again merely for the novelty of it all._

_Something felt…different, and it wasn't the system. He supposed the installation had been completed, it had to have been for him to be THIS awake…but something felt different, something felt NEW, New in the capital sense._

_And this we'll protect? And this? And this? In his mind the faces swarmed, the idiots, the chatterboxes, and he realized in a dim, and then brilliant way, that Dragon was not around, that those other two…those other two, he remembered their names vaguely, but their faces with ease. The stares, the stupid looks and the asinine grins. _

_And this we'll protect? I never vowed to guard the terminally stupid…_

_Terminally? He laughed again, that word was suddenly hilarious and he wanted to grab it, embrace it, strangle it and feel it scream out. Terminally stupid, eh?_

_And I let these people into my circuitry? _

_Oooo…who's the idiot now? You're in good hands, you're in GREAT hands, let us probe into your mind and spark and…and…this we'll defend?_

_And this? And this? This too? Even this?_

_The answer would be yes to all if it was yes to one, and he knew it with utter denial. Noooooo, he tried to say, and it came out in bubble form, itching across the darkness, where their faces stared back at him. Dragon. Those two techs. The guards that asked for more ID. And more. And this…and more ID and this we'll defend?_

_He rose from the darkness with those words in his mouth, and then the darkness was born away and he was staring into the light._

Light, and light, and then some more light as his optics blared on, and Meagos stared upward with sudden blindness as his optics rejected the light…and then grew calm, and he could see again.

"Meagos?" There was someone else in the room, and he turned to face them, but something barred his way.

"What…" he started, puzzled, the rage building as he saw the restraint over his lower torso.

"Oh, sorry about that," said the bot without gold optics. The one with gold optics was watching him, a face of potential intelligence. The first bot reached over, over to a console. "That was just in case the shock was too great. We've had some people in the past come out of stasis after an installation surprised. They thrash around, sometimes fall off the table."

The restraint began to withdraw slowly, too slowly, far too much. Meagos could barely stare at it through the crimson view that was his sight. _They…they tied me DOWN, did they?_

_And this we'll defend?  
><em> "Oh…." he whispered softly, unaware that he had spoken. The two technicians weren't even looking at him. "….oh _slagging _no…"

"Meagos?" asked the one without gold optics. "How do you feel now?"

He waited, waited, was silent until the bar was gone, and then sat up abruptly. His chest felt sore, and his inner circuitry ached without explanation. "Fine…"

The bot with gold optics was watching him critically. "You look fine. Now why don't you go to the training deck? We can test out your new system."

_New system?_ A careful probe revealed the truth; his mind was still murky from stasis. _Yes… _

There was something new, something alien and powerful, and he felt something new in his torso. _Launcher_, his mind supplied, and, _loaded. Loaded, loaded launcher. Radar_. He was aware that he could nearly _feel_ the technicians (and he was certain that was what else they were…a slight shake of his memory revealed it all, yes…_Slydar and Crizos_), nearly _feel_ their sparks, his radar was that new and sensitive, and they were watching him curiously.

Slydar was out the door by the time Meagos was standing up, and he weighed himself carefully against the table. _Newness, indeed…_

"Meagos?" He turned to see Crizos smiling at him. But Crizos' spark wasn't. No…his spark was not smiling, but it was calm.

_Let's see how long it stays that way. I never vowed to protect these…_

_And this we'll defend?_

"Yes?" he asked, when his mind screamed the opposite to his mental question.

The tech smiled. "I think you'll really like this system. It shows so much promise…like you, if you don't mind me saying so."

Meagos felt a smile, but it was not really a smile, only a grimace stretched upward. "I don't," he said honestly, and Crizos headed to the door, unaware that Meagos had delicately plucked up a scalpel from the instrument table.

He waited until the tech was nearly at the door. "….Crizos?"

The tech turned, and when he saw the blade, he didn't connect its intent to Meagos' smile, nor the fact that the future Guardian was coming closer very quickly.

"Yes?"

"You may feel some temporary discomfort," said Meagos with a tight snarl that looked far too much like a smile, but by the time Crizos had realized something was amiss, Meagos had brought the blade down, shearing off his vocal unit in one clean sweep, and even as Crizos tried to scream in alarm and fear (_THERE is it!_ _There was what his radar picked up, what he had to feel and have-)_, Meagos picked him up and shattered his back armor and wiring against the wall. The last Crizos saw of the world was Meagos' clenched fists racing at his face, and then there was only agony, and then he knew no more.

* * *

><p>"It's awake now, sir."<p>

"Good," said Dragon, his optics glittering with something like malice. But because this _was_, after all, all for the cause of science, it was considered brilliance instead. "Start. 0.06 AMU."

Meagos dropped the corpse, looking at it curiously. _This we will defend…this lackluster fool? And all his kind?_

_Never again._ He picked up a handful of other instruments, weighing each thoughtfully. Another scalpel. An electric prod, what THAT was doing in here he could only guess…but he _was_ glad it was here. A blade thick enough to slice through solid energon. A curved wirecutter. Circuit solder. He smiled at each in turn, and then waited to the side of the door.

He did not have to wait long.

"….Crizos? Meagos?" The room was still brilliantly bright, and thus Slydar had no problem seeing the sudden and wild splashes of mech fluid that now stained the walls, floor, the operation table and side tables, and then he saw Crizos' pieces, and could only gape.

"…..CRIZOS!"

"Guess what, Slydar?" The head technician spun to the sound of the low voice, and his bright golden optics widened at the silvery-gold splashes on the future Guardian.

"_I'm_ _very shiny and new_!" Meagos lunged at the technician, and his radar bloomed with the sudden explosion of primal fear from the golden-eyed bot, picking him up and shattering his torso armor before Slydar could even scream.

_Be fast be quick_, ordered a part of Meagos that was still in control, a part that was cool but calculating in this excitement, and his optics gleamed with sudden realization. _The guards._

He would have to be fast then. So he merely slammed this technician on the operating table, and _then_ Slydar shrieked as fists nearly larger than his head pulled his torso in half from the middle, splitting him evenly, wrenching out fistfuls of wires and gleaming circuits. Mech fluid exploded from the impact, and Slydar's vocal unit was flooded with the liquid, a shimmery shower of it flying from his mouth before Meagos thought to shield himself. Hot fluid sprayed over his upper chest, and he inhaled the smell, drawing some of the steam into his mouth. The taste was raw and ravenous in his mouth, but the taste of the technician's spark was unbelievably delicious.

He left the body on the table, wiped off his lower face, and went to find the guards.

_And this I'll defend? Oh…they have NO idea…_

* * *

><p>"Raise it."<p>

The floor technician nodded, waved to the tech on his right. That tech looked up curiously, then nodded, and turned the dial of the shock boxes up to 0.42.

If the six technicians on the floor had any indication the protoform before them was trying desperately to shriek in agony, they gave no sign.

The guards were…surprisingly easy to surprise. None of their training had taught them to be aware of employees _of_ Dihex. They were armed and set to defend the labs from intruders from the outside, not the inside. They were very prepared for the former case. In the latter, their performance left something to be desired.

Or so thought Meagos as he made his way to the main lift shaft. His supply of instruments from the operating room was running low, but experimenting with his new system made up for any lack of other weapons. The launcher in his chest he had made full use of already, watching with bright interest as a disc over a foot in diameter had sheared the arms off of one such guard. Aiming was another thing entirely, but the shrieks of the surprised guard had promised that learning how to aim would be very….fun. _Yes._ Fun was the word he was looking for.

And his radar…he was still getting used to this increased signature pickup. But that too was _fun_. Feeling, if not hearing, the sparks of others on his new system was certainly more entertaining, especially in the radical difference between a spark at rest and one in a panic flight mode before he tore into it.

_Fun. And to think I thought PROTECTING these things would be!_

The thought drew a rough chuckle from his throat. But he knew he could not afford to be random here, he had to be safe still. Chances were very good the security cameras had picked up his activity; he did not doubt that he had not destroyed all of them in that corridor. And sadly, save for those two guards and the technicians, the entire _floor_ he had been on had been empty.

_Draw me down_, he thought with another grin, not caring that his mouth was stained with mech fluid. _Energon is NOTHING by comparison…_

The lift was also empty. _More's the pity_. He could not feel any other sparks, but perhaps his systems, he realized, were not _that_ sensitive to pick up spark signatures over a distance. The lift was enclosed and thicker than the doors on the operations level, but his radar also had not picked up any energy signatures either.

_Can it be feasible that there is not a PERSON on ANY of these levels?_

Well…perhaps it _was_. But he also knew the lower levels were teeming with scientists and testers; had he not seen them on the first floor when he came with Dragon?

_Dragon…_ Oooo, he liked the sound of _that_.

_Try your chatterboxing when I've made you swallow that unit_. Another low and raspy chuckle ran over his vocal unit, and he descended.

* * *

><p>"Half an AMU." Dragon watched with interest as the protoform writhed on the table; his pain was enough that he was nearly bending his restraints. Instead he was merely raking paint off on them, and that was one thing they never replaced. Well, hardly.<p>

"You're enjoying yourself, aren't you?"

Dragon favored Ivex with half a glance. "And you're not? Don't wax martyr on me, Ivex."

The head of security only looked at the protoform, whose optics were blaring in agony, rich sheets of deep green, verdant like an organic forest.

_And this we'll defend? And this? And this?_

Dragon's face swarmed in his mental vision. Crizos. Slydar. The guards too stupid to fight back, only scream…and the sheer vibrance of their sparks against his throat on the way down.

The lift descended to ground level, and then continued down, much to his surprise.

Meagos reached out to halt the lift, then paused with a slow smile. He had always been told (_once, before? Oh, yes, back THEN…and this we will defend!_) that Dihex had nothing below ground level save janitorial supplies. A basement. Worthless things. But that hardly explained why his radar _was_ picking up sparks now…a lot of them.

_It was warming up before…and below level? Below ground? The stairs, those hideous stairways, and what are they hiding down there? Mmmmm?_

He kept sinking into the laboratories, no Dihex guide to stop him, and only grinned when he heard another shriek, this one loud and brimming with agony, not unlike the screams of Slydar and the guards.

"WHAT happened!" Ivex's blue optics gleamed paranoia, and the protoform screaming had finally brought Dragon up to par with the importance of restraints.

"What is going on!" he demanded, but Ivex had already grabbed control of the communications link, shoving orders into it and the system pit. The technicians had already replaced the gag; somehow, none of them could explain _how_, and that _how_ was what Ivex was so worried about, the gag had come undone, allowing the protoform to scream. Such noises frightened the techs…and made it hard to concentrate as well.

The electronic bit had not been used in this experiment, and Ivex growled to himself; he had pushed for its use in every experiment, and had demanded that it be installed inside the protoform permanently. The idea had been shot down by his commanders, as well as High Command. They might have use for the bit _elsewhere_, they had told him repeatedly. We can make new ones, he had cried back, desperate at that stage, so early on in this game with the protoform, but his idea had been vetoed again, and the bit was only used when the thing refused to be silent.

In this case, the restraint barring its mouth shut had come loose, somehow, and Ivex could only stare in a raw fury as the shock boxes were forced to halt, the technicians scurrying like small animals or drones to fix the problem. The protoform had managed to scream twice before being barred off again.

"I told you something like this would happen!" he shot at Dragon. "I _told_ you, I've been TELLING all you people since day one-"

"Shut up, Ivex."

Ivex stared in mute shock. After a pause, his mind refusing that that had _not_ happened, Dragon was a _subordinate_ despite what he thought, he managed: _What_ did you say?

"You heard me." Dragon stared at Ivex, his optics gleaming, his back to the system pit. "It was a _gag_, Ivex, it was not his restraints! You are too _paranoid_ over small mere things like a scream once in a while! Flash to Ivex, _it is going to scream and we can and HAVE stopped it before_! This is _not_ an emergency, and the sooner you realize-"

He was cut off by the shrieks of metal, not originating from a vocal unit, but from the security doors to the system pit. They were being _torn in half_, and even as he stared in shock, a final blast of power bulldozed them the rest of the way.

Safe in the observer room, a box above the system floor and pit, Dragon and Ivex watched in disbelief, the technicians staring in mute shock as the bodies of five security guards collapsed into the pit, parts splaying with mech fluid, the smell overpowering and rich in airy texture. The techs began to scream, males and females alike, as a sixth body was flung into the room, knocking over the cart of shock boxes, spilling scalpel and blade and circuit welders. The scientists finally scattered, a few paralyzed, staring at the mech-smeared bot who stood in the doorway, his crimson optics brilliant, a supernova against the white of walls.

The door dust crumbled into the pit, blocking the lights as other dust rose, blocking it out. But there was still enough light for the bot to lunge out, seize a screaming technician, knock his head away like so much cheap metal filling, and then fling the body in a mech gold-silver smear into the wall. The survivors shrieked and bolted, but there was only one exit and entrance to the pit, and the bot was standing in front of it.

The only person in the pit who did _not_ seem terrified, who was not screaming, was the protoform himself, giving the newcomer a quick glance, and then _jerked_ as hard as he could against his restraints. Metal squealed and gave, but it was not the restraints that did. He screamed in fury and frustration as the scientists and technicians screeched in panic.

The intruder was too fast for them. When drawn by one away from the others, he was distracted only momentarily before firing a load of discs, each of them roughly a foot and a half wide with eerie edge sharpness, into the crowd…then spanning his aim to include the entire room. Many of the techs and scientists were struck down, not fatally, but the sound of their wails and shrieks filled the already hellhouse of sound. One fallen tech collapsed part-way on the operation table, the disc slicing into the restraint and nearly the protoform, who looked at it for a moment in disbelief, and then began pulling at his bonds with more eagerness, one arm freed and nearly flailing in the sudden surprise of freedom. His feet beat on the table, the restraint over his lower legs shattering with another disc.

In the observer room, the leads could only stare in stunned stupefying shock; the alarms were sounding, but mixed with the cries of the dying and soon to be dead, they were only a small whisper. There were no guards racing in; there was only massacre.

Dragon stared for several more moments, his mind rejecting what his optics plainly saw, and even then could only barely gasp out in a whisper. "….._Meagos_?"

* * *

><p>Meagos was having a ball, in a form of terms. The guards and the techs on the higher levels, he realized in a deep and nearly gruesome way, had been only practice; cunning had brought him this far, and the destruction of the main guard room had only added fuel to the inferno.<p>

He stared at the few sparks remaining in the pit; they were all trying to occupy the same space against the furthest wall. The taste of their shocked fear, their disbelief that _this_ of all things was happening, that _this_ was how it was going to end, was, not to understate it, the most delicious thing he had ever the luck to sense.

_And THIS we will defend!_ His mind crowed in victory, and that was when his vision cleared enough (wiping his optics also helped with this action, naturally) to see the operations table. And the restraints, twice as large as the one that had pinned him down like some sort of specimen, here were smeared with not only mech fluid, but paint, and char marks as if from electrical or fire burns.

There was something strapped to the table, something that was trying _very_ enthusiastically to get its other arm free, and that was when Meagos stepped close enough to actually see that this was _not_ a technician, not a scientist…but something else.

And here he stopped and here he stared, more in amazement than anything, for here was something, some_one_ his size, someone who was still fighting against his restraints, but that was not what had him spellbound. No…he was also not used to shock boxes, but he knew enough of them that they were couriers of pain if a tech was dumb enough to activate one near himself. Here, _inside_ the torso of this large bot, were at least _seven_ of the insane things, all of them linked…or had been, he realized, optics trailing along the snapped links to the main battery storage one of his launcher discs (and the bodies of two technicians) had destroyed and crushed. And judging from the scorch marks, they had been in high use.

But that still was not what he stared at in simple and sheer shock; his optics were drawn to the open cavity of the bot's chest. Lined and surrounded by the now dead boxes, was an open hole, a missing shard of protection, and the bot's spark was gleaming bare to the world, glowing and revolving lazily, a light show that was far too open.

As if drawn by magnets, his optics trailed along a shock box's cord; the cord was not attached to anything, but the spark _itself_, or at least the bearings under it.

_To shock the spark_, he realized dimly, and he stepped closer, the protoform freezing and staring at him warily. _To shock its SPARK?_

Yes…and judging from the scorch marks _on_ the cord…they had been doing just that. _Those technicians were SHOCKING its SPARK?_

The protoform stared at him, silent, emerald optics whirling, and even as Meagos stared, the strapped-down bot wrenched at his other arm, the metal squealing like a trapped animal.

"What _are_ you?" demanded Meagos. The protoform looked at him warily again, and for a moment its optics seemed to dull, and then focus with alarming alacrity. Meagos thought to step back, step back and _fire_ on this eerie thing, when the protoform seized a piece of its restraints, a curved and sharpened arc of metal, and flung it through the air.

It nearly sliced into Meagos' shoulder, and even as he drew back in the realization of that factor, there came a strangled sound behind him; he turned in time to fire another disc into a trio of armed guards (_So I DID miss a few of them! …what ELSE have I missed?_). They died very loudly and messily, but he had even less time now, and he knew that. The idea was now to escape, to leave Dihex. He was finished with these labs, and he wanted _out_.

His gaze jerked back to the protoform, who was bound only to the table by a lower restraint.

"What _are_ you?" he repeated, staring, still mesmerized as the bot had started wrenching out the shock boxes and throwing them as far as it could. Its spark cavity was still open, and the last box was ripped away with a strangled hiss as the cord unlinked from the bearing under the spark. Then it too was flung, smashing into the battery, and even as Meagos watched with widening optics, the first of the fires exploded from that union.

The protoform had managed to close the spark casing, but the gleam of it, a simple spark _open_ to the world like that, and yet the bot was still alive!, despite the shock boxes, despite the burn marks, and even then it only stared at him, uncertain, unsure.

"What are _you_?" it asked back finally, the second and third fires already starting. In the observer room, Dragon and Ivex had already left. Neither of the bots still alive in the pit knew.

Meagos smiled, his teeth and mouth stained with mech. "Death."

The protoform, of _all_ the bots he had encountered, all the techs, the guards, the scientists, did not flinch, did not even _appear_ afraid. Only…interested. And it grinned, _grinned_ of all things.

"You'll find me a difficult customer to service then," it said with an equally low and vicious tone, and Meagos blinked, startled. His radar was picking up _no_ fear from this new spark…only a low, intense curiosity, and something…darker, something similar and alike, and he found himself smiling back, unaware or caring that dribbles of mech began to fall.

"What are you?" he repeated.

The protoform looked back at him, met his gaze, and that seemed to startle it, because it could only stare into his optics, but there was _still_ no fear, only that sense of similarity again. Meagos was not certain if he enjoyed this feeling, but staring this thing in the optics was…unsettling. It was obviously not the same as the techs, or the guards, or anyone else he had met in Dihex.

It opened its mouth, perhaps to reply, and that was when a volley of laserfire screamed into the room, exploding the final shock box cart in a flurry of sparks and white air sparkles, lethal to touch and blinding to sight.

"It's escaping!" came a wild shriek, and Meagos spun, opening in return volley; he realized suddenly that there _was_ security alive still, and it was the defense system. And the screams…he _knew_ that voice. It was wild here, and panicked, and streaked with an underlying fury, but it was Dragon, and he knew that in the same way he knew the bot strapped to the table still was not like anything he had ever encountered before.

The protoform screamed in a pain-filled rage as lasers struck not only the table, but himself, knocking him back onto the broken restraints. His hands grappled wildly for the last bar, and despite his obvious shock, he did not hesitate but instead plunged off the table, hands pressing the spark casing of his torso closed. Meagos pulled back from the table, the last restraint still in his hand from where he had wrenched it free, aimed carefully, and shattered a security camera above the doorway. The explosion knocked out another laser cannon, and Meagos glanced at the freakish protoform, who stood nearly as tall as he himself did. Despite the scorch marks and paint smears (and the eerie smell of melting metal), the bot was standing by himself, staring at the carnage.

"Dragon," hissed Meagos; his radar had finally picked up the panic in that chatterbox of a spark, which was running away…but not to the lift. To someplace _below_ even this floor.

The table behind them shattered into shards, making the two males jump aside, the protoform nearly falling over in surprise. Meagos stared at it with some contempt, but the memory of the shock boxes around its spark, and the cords _under_ it, to fry it with equal animosity, quelled that feeling. This bot was like no one else he had ever met, and he realized that almost grudgingly. For starts, it was upright and standing, despite what had been happening to its spark.

"What are you?" asked the protoform again, staring at him openly.

"What?" he replied in irritation.

"You're not a technician. What are you doing here?" The protoform seemed honestly confused.

"This." Meagos opened fire at the doorway again, but there were no new screams. Dragon's spark signal was getting weaker, and his optics narrowed, fists clenching with small squirts of mech fluid. The protoform eyed his hands, then the rest of him. Its spark did not read any fear factor…but there was something akin to awe. Surprise. And that feeling of being in the presence of an equal only unnerved Meagos, but it was time to leave.

"I'm leaving," he said simply, and started for the door, letting his radar sweep out widely in arcs. "You can come or you can stay. I don't care."

He was startled by how silent the protoform could move, sliding right behind him, optics also narrowing, but there was some inner frenzy inside this one's strange spark. An eagerness not only to leave, but…

"Escape?" he said, unaware he had spoken aloud, pausing in the doorway to stare at the new bot, who looked back at him with equal confusion. And then nodded.

"Where's Dragon?" Meagos demanded.

"Who?"

"Dragon. _Dragon._ A technician. Red tiny thing that never shuts up."

The protoform looked at him, blinking slowly. "I…don't know."

"Do you know anything useful?" he snarled, stepping out into the ruined hallway. He noted the missing lift with a nod; Dragon _had_ passed by here. Now, to find him…and then escape.

"I know about shock boxes," growled the protoform, and he blinked at the new tone of voice. "I know about technicians and gags and having my circuits melted and scientists taking careful notes while I scream, or try to." Its optics gleamed dangerously as it stared around the room in surprise, taking in every new detail meticulously. "What did you _want_ to know?"

Meagos watched it carefully, then headed for the lift panel, striking its activation button. "Your name."

The doors opened, another lift already present…either that or Dragon _had_ escaped. Meagos growled, a low thunder in the silver and gold streaked lift, at the very thought, but watching this new bot smile slowly, then with a brilliance Meagos had never quite seen at the split life fluid, was very…intense. Interesting.

"Name?" asked the protoform, and for a second he was silent, his optics concentrating on his massive hands, digits bent and twisted and melted at joints. "My name is…..X."

Meagos eyed him as the lift descended. "That's all?"

"That is all," agreed X, then met his gaze again with alarming alacrity. Such clearness Meagos had never seen since…he could not remember.

"Meagos," the other replied, and slammed the pause button on the console. The door opened obediently, a smear of bright gold left on the console, and the two stepped into a vast cavern lit from above brightly. The walls were dark, and the contrast cast and flung shadows around the sub-basement of the laboratory building.

"What…is this?" asked X, staring. Meagos barely looked at him; his radar system was slowly picking up something new. A form of block, something that insisted he _could_ read this spark…but it was wiser not to. That was perfectly all right, because X had not yet learned to mask his face. His eagerness…and something _else_ showed perfectly in his grin that was not quite a normal facial expression.

But he was confused as well, and Meagos knew that all too well.

"Draaaaaagon?" he called softly, stepping into one of the vast and blocky shadows. X followed him silently; the protoform's body was large yet quiet, but every action of him teamed with an eerie life, a jerkiness that reeked of inexperience.

_Considering what condition I found him in, I think that is forgivable…and this we'll defend?_

Meagos peered through the darkness, meeting the emerald glowing optics of his escapee.

…_perhaps._

There was a very light pressure not on him, but near him enough to make him turn to face X. "What?" he hissed, and that was when he saw the lift light glow, and the doors open.

A bot stood in the doorway of the slashed dark and lightness, shaken, his hands and feet smeared with the mech of Dihex' staff. But his form was not red…it wasn't Dragon.

Meagos became slowly aware of X growling next to him; it was a near silent snarl of rage, and he imagined that the protoform was not trembling (was he even aware he was doing it? surely not) in fear, but raw fury.

"Who is that?" whispered Meagos as the blue-opticed bot slowly slunk from the lift, staring into every corner. He was a walking panic attack; his spark palpitated within its container, fast and wild, feral. Meagos could nearly feel it screaming in fear, and he watched curiously.

"I know him," hissed X, and it _was_ a hiss, words forced into a gasping snarl too strong to be set free and alert the bot. "I..._know_ him."

Meagos smiled at this, but mostly at the fact that the bot had proven some form of use. Still unaware he was being watched by potentially the two most dangerous sparks ever to visit Dihex, Ivex quickly entered his private access codes into a nearly invisible console. The two watching him continued to do so. Only Meagos grinned as the shuttle decloaked, a black ship lined with gold and silver trim.

_So he thinks he can get away so easily_?

_And this we'll defend?_

_No, not never ever again…trying to run, are we?_

"I'll get him," hissed the protoform at his side. "Can you get that….other thing?"

Meagos looked at him, this time in surprise. "The shuttle," he whispered, and nodded. He paused. "You are able to…?"

"What?"

"I only meant…." Meagos trailed off, suddenly puzzled. What HAD he meant? And much more, why did he care?

_Because this X…he is not like the rest. No. And you know that. You can sense it._

And that much was very true.

"Your spark," he finally said quietly. X looked at him, and this time Meagos could not stop his systems from feeling the sheer shock radiating from the other's spark. _He didn't expect that._

"….my spark…" The protoform blinked, then shook his head. "I have survived worse." And then he was gone, sliding away in the shadows of perhaps other shielded shuttles, ships, whatever other offal Dihex stored far below business and research levels. Meagos followed his spark for a moment, then stepped off to cut off the blue-opticed bot. He had not yet reached the shuttle.

Ivex almost made it. He had reached the door; this model of a shuttle was older than most, and its side door was a manual open. Unlocked as always, it merely waited for him to open it, and then, he knew, he would enter the shuttle, open the bunker's door, and then be gone, be so far away from all of this, all the bodies and the dead guards and Dragon and…and the missing experiment. High Command just _might_ be upset about all this, but he _had_ warned them, oh, yes, he had, and he nearly made it out and into the escape shuttle. Instead, his optics were drawn from the door and its promise of freedom and escape to the sudden agony flaring in his arm as something very large and heavy seized it; he turned, and felt all of his inner wires freeze in the sudden realization of what his future held.

X smiled at him, a true smile for once, one of pure happiness…and something else.

"No," Ivex barely had time to gasp, but of course the protoform _knew_ him, of course it had seen him before, and Ivex realized in the moment before he was wrenched from his arm, left clinging to the door handle and console pad, before he started to shriek and could only gape silently at X, who was suddenly far too close, too close, and then closer in screeching agony, that no restraints could have been strong enough.

Less than two minutes later, Meagos appeared, and the look he gave X was not one of disapproval, only more curiosity.

"Where is he?"

X shrugged carefully, not appearing to notice the great amount of mech fluid that dribbled from his elbow joints and fingers. "Which part?"

Meagos felt himself smiling, and for once it was a real smile. _And perhaps…perhaps yes._ He only nodded to X, then wrenched open the shuttle's door, motioning to it. "In. Now. There's no time for anything else."

X stared at the shuttle, and for a moment Meagos could only look at him. _He's acting like he's never seen this kind of transport before._ The blank yet surprised look in X's optics._ Or any. _

Meagos growled. _This is no time for…for…for STUPIDITY._

But he knew it was not, somehow. "IN!" he roared, and the protoform bolted inside, taking in the inside of the control room with quick surprise before sitting in one of the chairs. Meagos locked his position in the control seat, and not totally unaware that X was watching him with curious and somewhat wide optics, activated the main console. The panels and consoles erupted in lights, dials activating, and the radar and small defense system came online…and with them, the basement's door activation. Meagos struck that button swiftly, then watched with a satisfied face as the west wall faded to reveal wide-set door panels, and they were opening swiftly.

"Lock in," he ordered, setting their course and reviewing the panels. A full reserve fuel tank, check. All instrument panels online, check. Locked in for hyperdrive, check. A full fuel tank, check.

The sound of metal screeching against metal caught his attention, and he glared at X, who was holding up the three lock seat restraints in puzzlement.

"Hurry it up!" Meagos barked, but it became quickly apparent that X had _no_ idea what he was doing. Snarling curses (and part of him wondering all the while why he simply did not _leave_ this idiot...but no…he wasn't _quite_ that), he unlocked his restraints quickly, bolting over to X, and locked him in his seat.

The protoform gawked after him, and then locked his hands onto the seat lock. "What…_what_?" he cried out in confusion, and was about to rip the bonds apart when Meagos stared at him.

"It's for hyperdrive," he snarled. "Now be quiet, we have to get out of here. We're good at killing people, but we can't kill _everyone_ Dihex calls in!"

X nodded mutely; his rage seemed to have fled in the sudden realization that he had traded restraints with the scientists…for restraints with this very strange Meagos. Who, he noted, was _not_ a technician, _not_ a scientist…had in fact killed every single one, directly or not, in the operations pit. _He didn't work for Dihex._

_But…why did he get me out?_

Still in a form of shock, he settled his arms on the rests, looking at them blankly, then at the brilliant array of panels and touch-screens on the consoles before him, his hands curling into small loose fists on the bond restraints. It was too much, so too fast, and X could feel his mind aching with the filling, but there was another thought rampaging in his mind, and that was only a sheer repetition: _I'm free…I've been freed…I'm…freee…_

The shuttle was moving, slowly at first, and then, warming up with takeoff, glided over the basement floor, and Meagos watched it grimly. He knew he had been enjoying himself a lot…perhaps _too_ much inside, and it was only a matter of time before someone, like Dragon, perhaps, or even someone watching the security monitors from another place, called in the great security. High Command's army. Perhaps the Guardians.

From what he had seen of this X person, he could do damage as well…but even the two of them wouldn't be able to stand against such numbers.

"And this we'll defend," he whispered with a rough and callused chuckle, making X look at him discreetly, but then the shuttle really began to move, accelerate, and the outside was visible, bright daylight. The protoform stared, unaware that he was shaking slightly from the overexposure; he was very used to the bright white of the pit, but this natural light…it ached in a new way, and he dimmed his optics, unable to continue.

"Are you all right?" Meagos demanded, glancing at the stranger, who was sitting bolt upright in the other seat, optics dead, vaguely shaking.

The answer was so low he blinked. "…I think so. Where are we going?"

"Out," he said simply, and shoved the shifter gear into place. The shuttle's engines bellowed to life, and here X's optics grew brilliant again as the shuttle took off, out of the basement, out of Dihex, and into the brightness of the natural world of Cybertron beyond.

The protoform was forced to turn his optics off; his mind was wheeling and reeling, and the shock of it all, of Ivex and the shuttle, of the dead technicians and the fights, of these bonds being able to be broken, of this Meagos breaking him free, this shock of _being_ free, made him clench his fists tightly, letting his breath out through a clenched mouth and teeth, a gasp.

Meagos barely glanced at him, and then turned his attention to the hyperdrive. They were reaching it, reaching it, and in a final burst of fuel, the sky before him turned a jet sable black, the brilliance of stars streaming in it, and the shuttle flung itself into hyperdrive, jetting away from Dihex and Cybertron, and was off both's radar scans in less than two minutes.

They were safely out of Cybertron's orbit and into the next galaxy a few minutes later, and it was only then that hyperdrive slowed to normal shuttle speed. Meagos would have liked to have gone further from Cybertron, but this was an escape shuttle, _not_ one suited for extended hyperdrive missions. He felt lucky that it was filled with fuel alone; he had yet to determine how many more hypers they could make before the engines gave way.

His companion still silent beside him, Meagos flickered his gaze and fingers over the control consoles. So they had used that much fuel for hyperdrive…so they could go _this_ far on it (he was not really surprised to see that the shuttle's hyperdrive was much less powerful than what he was used to), and according to the locality range, they were in the Gala Quadrant, of the Ricos galaxy. That was fine with Meagos.

_Soon we'll have another ship_. And he was only mildly surprised at the _we_. He finally looked at the bot in the passenger seat; the shuttle was barely large enough for a third, perhaps fourth party in a back sliding seat, and beyond that rested several reserve boxes. He knew enough that they would have energon and little else, perhaps a few repair kits. Weapons surely were not included, much like batteries.

"Are you awake?" he demanded, watching the console lightly. Their path was straight and easy, and according to the radar systems, it would be clear for some time.

X stirred, optics coming back on as he vaguely stared into the vastness of the black world before them. "…where are we going?" he managed, tearing his gaze away to look at Meagos.

The future Guardian was wiping his front torso off; most of the mech had dried there, but some was still liquid enough to glide off. "Away from Cybertron at first, which we have accomplished. Beyond that…I don't know." He gave X a brilliant mech-stained smile, and in his mind, a few grudging judges held up high score cards as X again did not shrink back, nor even look vaguely disturbed. "Where sounds good to you?"

The bot stared at him for a moment. "I'm…not sure," he said finally. He glanced back at Meagos; for the first time in his life, X was uncertain. "I don't know much about that."

"Well," said Meagos with forced brightness, "other than sparks, what _do_ you know about?"

X turned his gaze back to the vastness of space. "Shock boxes," he said finally. "And circuitry melding with restraints. And lack of energon."

Meagos was not aware that he was staring at his passenger, and even if he had, he would not have cared. "What," he asked, "were they doing to you anyway?"

"At what point?"

Meagos was silent for a moment. "…I can see we're not getting anywhere. You know my name and I know yours, and beyond that-"

"Why did you take me out of there?" interjected his passenger suddenly.

Meagos was again quiet for a few minutes. The sad fact of the matter was he simply did not _know_ why he had not killed this other bot…for Primus sake, he had even been strapped down, and still Meagos had let him live.

_But his spark…remember his spark! And the technicians._

Well, fine, perhaps he _had_ been distracted by the technicians…and the security system, but that was still no excuse.

"I have a better idea," he said instead. "I ask a question, you answer it. Then you ask a question, and I answer it. That work?"

X nodded. "It sounds workable," he admitted, and found his optics dropping to his form again. When he was not staring at the shuttle, or at this stranger, or at space, he was at his body. True, it was still scarred and marred from the scorches, and he ached all over inside, but it was the first time in…in a very long time he had ever seen himself _without_ restraints. It was still a novelty.

"Who are you?" demanded Meagos, watching his passenger curiously, and jetted the shuttle into automatic pilot. "And don't tell me your name, I already know that."

"I am X," said the protoform. "But I was called Protoform X."

"Why Protoform?"

X thought about commenting that that was _two_ questions, but decided to let it slide. For reasons still unknown to him, this stranger had not only attacked those technicians and freed him…but had taken him _with him_ to…wherever. But it had to be better than Dihex, wherever it was.

"Because," he said. "That's what they called me. But don't. I prefer X…I'm not a protoform."

"You're up." Meagos watched the shuttle pilot through the darkness lit only by the shuttle's seeker beam, and the dimness of the stars.

"Why are you covered in that stuff?"

"This?" Meagos flicked a finger over the gold smears, and X nodded. "Technical term is mech fluid, as you know…and none of it is mine." He paused. "Well, perhaps a little. But it's from the crew at Dihex." He grinned. "I killed them."

X nodded; this was perfectly understandable. While he had not known precisely what that shimmer of liquid was, he had felt more than enough of it come from himself, and the pain that followed insured it was not painless for _anyone_. He had to smile at that.

"Why were you at Dihex? Some volunteer?"

X blinked, and then turned a very startled (and partly, he admitted privately, enraged) look at the other. "No. Not a volunteer." He knew that word at least; the scientists and technicians had spoken over him enough for him to pick up language.

"Then what?"

"A protoform," he said guardedly; for some reason he was reluctant to explain further. He knew he had never had a chance to escape before, and it had taken him some time to put together the fact that there was indeed a world outside the white walls he was always shown and trapped in. Obviously the techs came from _somewhere_, right?

"Why were you at Dihex?"

"Who says I could leave?" he shot back, annoyed suddenly, and his optics gleamed into an equally irritated Meagos'.

"You couldn't?" Open, honest question, but X still had no want to answer. On the other hand…he had his own questions, and he _had_ agreed to this.

On another hand, he was secretly thrilled, and not only because he _was_ free…no matter where he was going, or what this Meagos had planned for him…Meagos was talking _to_ him, not at him, not above him.

"No," he said. "I couldn't. What were you doing in Dihex?"

"Getting a new system installed. I was in training to be a-" -and here Meagos spat the word- "-_Guardian_, but plans have changed. Why couldn't you leave?"

"They never let me," said X shortly, and that of course was true. "They never let me out of the building. What's a Guardian?"

Meagos eyed him suspiciously. "Something useless who protects the fools and the idiots and the stupid. No, not useless. Call them target practice."

"But you were going to be one?" X let the question revolve slowly, and had to blink at the sudden flare in Meagos' crimson optics.

"_Was_ going to…but as I have said," admitted Meagos, eyeing his hands, "plans have been altered. I have decided I have better things to do to the stupid and weak than _protect_ them. Why wouldn't they let you leave? Even if you were an employee, you had that right."

"I wasn't an _employee_. I wasn't a tech, or a scientist…or a janitorial, or a head of anything."

"Secretary?"

"No…I was a protoform."

"Meaning what, precisely?" clipped Meagos. "I know what a protoform _is_, but I don't see how that's why they could force you to stay in that place."

"They did, obviously."

"Well, obviously they _did_," he growled. "But you can be more forthcoming with answers. I have been."

And this of course X knew. "They never let me leave," he said slowly and with much hesitation and doubt, "because they didn't think I should. If you're not a Guardian, then what are you now?"

"A runaway from insanity," observed Meagos. "Call me Meagos the anti-Guardian. Why didn't they think you should leave?"

"Because…they were afraid of what I would do," and here X stared at his hands, remembering…and rather vaguely at that, the earliest times he had tried to speak and could only scream…and then had slowly learned to speak, and how the techs had _stared_ at him. And how worse the things they had done had been after that….

"What? Like kill them all?" Meagos grinned to reveal it was a joke; even now he could understand how some people (most, really, from what he had seen) _deserved_ death, but it was still entertaining to think otherwise as a devil's advocate.

"Yes," said X quietly, and nodded. "Why did you kill them all?"

"They were stupid," admitted Meagos honestly. "That and….it was fun. Very fun."

X could understand that; even before he had been given a vocal box, even before he knew the _terms_ for what he wanted to do to those techs and scientists and those two heads, the ones he had always seen in a box above everyone, watching, watching, observing _everything_, he had known what he wanted to do _to_ them. And how he wanted them to do only one thing back: scream.

"All right. Would you have killed them all?"

"If I had the chance," X said calmly, though he could feel his hands clenching, not in fury, but an eerie expectation. _How can I trust this person?_ _…as if I have a choice._

"And you didn't?"

"The bars weren't for my benefit." X hesitated. "Why did you set me free, take me with you?"

There was no response for a few minutes, and X fought the urge to repeat the question. On the rare time he had been able to speak and ask the techs _not_ to, to please _not_ to do something, it was ignored, no matter how many times it was repeated.

"I don't know," came back softly. "Would you believe that I really don't?"

"You don't work for Dihex?"

"No. Not anymore, at least….you never answered me this. Why didn't they let you leave that place?"

"Because…." And here X realized he could use the same answer, _he didn't know_…but he DID know, of course. Sometimes the techs became overcharged, and very chatty; on those occasions they would stop by wherever he was, and they would say everything they could. He was never quite certain if they spoke the real truth, or only what they saw as a truth. It was a sad thing, but he had to admit that to himself, but everything he knew of the places _outside _of Dihex (he only knew that was where he had been because sometimes the techs would talk nonstop, even after they started to recharge) came from the words of unreliable technicians overcharged on energon.

"Because?"

"Because," he said slowly, "…because they didn't want me to leave."

"They couldn't keep you there."

"They did," X said shortly.

"Why were you below ground level? Dihex never said it had a basement."

X glared at him. "Isn't it my turn to ask yet?"

Meagos blinked, then waved at him. "Go ahead. What else do you need to know?"

_Try everything_. X shook his head at the thought. "What else was in Dihex?"

"What else…?"

"What else did they have in there…besides me?"

An odd question, but then again, Meagos realized, _every_ question X had asked had been odd, eerie, questions about things that everyone knew. Every young bot was informed of Guardians, and every bot he had ever come across knew the words for mech fluid, rather than "stuff."

"A lot of radar systems," he started. "Some High Command stealth war plans. Computer upgrades, shields for personal use, increased hyperdrive for shuttles and ships. They had a lot of projects going on. So why were you below ground level? Why didn't anyone tell me about you?"

"Did you ask?"

"Don't be stupid. They wouldn't tell a volunteer Guardian anything. But they told me about every level…except for yours."

X was silent; this was, like most everything Meagos had told him, news. True, a part of him had often wondered why the techs and scientists coming to see and work on him were always the same…but the times when a new face entered the pit were very rare indeed.

"I don't think anyone was supposed to know," he guessed. "Why did you leave Dihex?"

Meagos snorted, waving a hand at the darkness outside the shuttle. "They were all so _stupid_ there…they thought I was like them. In every way. Stupid, insane, little piddling targets running around chatting useless facts at every corridor or audio. _But I am not_. And realizing that had to kill them, if I didn't. And you have been avoiding every question I ask about that. Why you were down there. What they were doing. So tell me _why_ you never told them you wanted to leave."

The answer, when it came moments later, was quiet, but Meagos sensed an inner rage echoing within it. "Why would they listen?"

Meagos stared at his passenger. "Because they legally couldn't _make_ you stay…and they couldn't force you with all those restraints." Something seemed to dawn in his optics, a new light, a learnt light. "What were they doing to you?"

"Tests."

When it was clear that no further elaboration would be coming, Meagos asked again. "Why?"

"Research." A pause, and here X looked outside into space. "Because…because they could."

"And no one stopped them?"

"Who would?" X laughed bitterly, a sound so strange and forlorn Meagos felt a cold drip of fear. It was nearly worse than the confusion his systems had picked up from X's spark.

"Why," he asked again, and X looked back at him with eerie optics, echoing the near blankness of space, shorn of stars and light.

"Haven't you found it strange that I'm asking what I'm asking?" asked X instead.

"About Dihex, yes…you're asking things that everyone knows. Like you've never been outside the damn place." The continued nearly dead look made Meagos blink. "…you haven't. Have you?"

It was far too late to deny anything, and despite his inner rage, despite even being _freed_ finally. X knew this utterly. "What gave me away?"

For the first time in his life (even what he could remember of _before_ getting this new system, as disgusting as that was), Meagos was stunned silent. For a moment, he stared out the window, and then back at X, who was staring back defiantly. "You're not joking, are you."

"Do I sound it?" Perhaps X was unaware that he was even doing it, but his hands were clasped around the main lock on the seat restraints. Trying to open them, maybe.

"But…what about your creators? Friends?"

"What kind of social circle did you expect me to have? And I stayed with my _creators_." Meagos blinked at the venom in the final word. "What kind of help did you expect me to have?"

_What every other person has. Even the stupid Guardians would have done something,_ Meagos wanted to say, and so he did.

"Every person," X said, finally looking up from the lock on his seat restraints, "is not _me_. There was no help in Dihex. No one else knew about me."

"That's impossible," Meagos said flatly. "Even if you never spoke to your friends and creators, they would have come looking some time. Or some tech would have told the Guardians."

"No one knew I existed," snarled X, optics gleaming like polished precious stones.

"Except for the techs and scientists…and Dragon," and that was when it finally boomed in him, and Meagos again could only gape. "They _created_ you? From scrap?"

"Did you expect anyone in there to _care_? To let me out? Why would they _ever_ do THAT?"

"They have no right," Meagos said, but he knew that excuse was frail at best. Of course they had a right; this was Dihex, after all, this was High Command's _personal_ research labs.

"No one stopped them," said X carelessly. "Why _would_ they?"

"Because I saw what they were doing…well…part of it," admitted Meagos. "You were trying to get away…and I _know_ those shock boxes hurt." He was astonished despite himself, not only for the questions, but for remotely _caring_ about the answers. "And they wouldn't let you leave because they made you…and no one knew." He paused. "That's torture," he said flatly, and was astonished again when X began to laugh.

"Noooo," the runaway said with a brilliant grin and a mad chuckle. "That's _not_ torture, Meagos."

It was, Meagos realized, the first time he had been called by name by this X. "What else is it then?" he demanded roughly.

"Research. Scientific _research_."

"But what they were doing was _torture_."

"No no," said X, shaking his head and wagging a finger, something he had picked up from a very overcharged tech, as if to a bad child or computer. "It's only torture if it's done to a _person_. It's research if it's done to a _test subject_. Or a protoform."

"Protoform X," repeated Meagos, unaware that he had spoken, but slowly and dangerously the pieces had fallen into place, and he could only look at X in sudden understanding. "That's you. Your name, X…not protoform."

"You are the first person to call me that," said X, and somehow Meagos was not surprised.

"What were they researching?" he asked, not certain he wanted the answer.

X paused, thinking this new idea over. He knew, of course, again, the chatty overcharged techs had been all too happy to explain, sometimes in terrible detail, what the next 'test' (they never called them experiments, but after listening to them for a while, he realized that was what they were…and how they were only agony, no matter the details) would be, and sometimes why. The reasons often varied, but one was always the same.

"Pain," he said slowly. "How much of it…I could withstand."

"I saw those boxes," Meagos interjected. "They were around your _spark_…and linked to its supports. That kind of pain would have killed you."

"As I was once told, whatever doesn't kill me only makes me stronger," said X with lackluster.

"It would have killed you," he insisted.

"It didn't."

"…how long had they been doing those things? Since you were created?"

X nodded. Somehow Meagos was not surprised.

"But…_why_?" demanded Meagos almost desperately. Dihex was forgotten, Cybertron was forgotten, even space as the final frontier was forgotten. He could only look at X.

"I asked…but they never exactly said. To see how much pain would kill me."

"And none ever did," said Meagos slowly, grasping still.

"No. That's what they wanted, I think."

"And what would that be?" asked Meagos, mystified but curious despite himself.

"They…didn't want me to die. I heard them a few times. Not many…but once a technician remarked on immortality. A spark that couldn't die…and Starscream."

Silence from the ex-Guardian. He knew _of_ Starscream, of course; everyone did, or at least anyone who took any form of history course in the education systems. A second-in-command in the Decepticon army. He had been destroyed in the time of Galvatron…but had been seen and felt on scanners since, even in the current modern era. Theorists who had come across him said that his spark had an eerie twist in its making, and as such, it was impossible to destroy it.

"They wanted your spark to be like his?" he asked, incredulous.

"I don't know…I only know it never went out." X turned a frightfully empty face at Meagos, his optics glowing dimly from the inside out. "But that's what they said…when they said anything at all."

Meagos paused; he was intelligent enough to realize that this did not _have_ to change anything…but also smart enough to know that it had and did. "But that one bot in the shuttle launch. You took care of _him_ easily enough."

Here X's smile brightened, and it was indeed a smile, a raw, open grin. "I didn't have experience, if that is what you meant. But I did dream of having it sometimes." He paused, looking down at his hands, still clasped on the seat restraints. "…where are we going?"

_I know he's not stupid, _Meagos knew._ I know he's not…and I think he understands all too well that this DOES change something…and pretending it doesn't is idiocy. On the other hand…_

On the other hand, what? Really.

Meagos smiled at him, and a second later, an equal expression greeted him back.

"We," said Meagos meaningfully, "are going on a well-deserved vacation. Computer, chart us for the nearest populated planet."

"Vacation?" asked X dubiously.

"Oh yes," grinned Meagos. "Think of Dihex…only better."

This time he was not surprised by X's laugh, mostly because he himself was about to, and both chuckles were dark and soothing in the empty silence of space.

* * *

><p>Colony Arbox was a mining community on the dark side of the planet Sycorax, but because it was a colony, several bots had brought their creations, creators, any amount of colleagues and friends, and despite the fact that over half of those in the colony worked in the metal mines, it was a busy place to live and work. Those who did not mine settled deals with Cybertron and other colonies in the importation of supplies and the exportation of their metals.<p>

It was, for the most part, a peaceful colony. As with all colonies, however, there were a handful of Guardians present on a daily basis. It was Arbox's unfortunate fate that all the Guardians had been summoned off planet for a meeting when the alien shuttle landed.

It was obviously of a Cybertronian design, and most of the colonists paid no attention; shuttles landed every day, with some relations or friends of some lead miners or exporters, or with supplies. The few colonists that _did_ go to the landing pad to see the new arrivals went, as was their usual custom, unarmed. After all, there was no _war_ on the Homeworld.

Nor did it strike those in the landing control towers odd that this shuttle had arrived unannounced. These things did happen after all. Emergency landings did occur. Sometimes there was engine failure, or machine malfunction. On a few very rare landings, they had been crashes rather than easy landing.

The shuttle landed easily, however, and the welcome party swarmed by it, waiting expectantly.

A few minutes later, when no one had emerged, a daring pilot trainee stepped closer and opened the door. She was a fairly young bot and like most of those on Arbox, threats of warfare and fighting had always been seen as slim to zero chances. Damaged bots, however, thankfully or unthankfully, were much more common, and so when the door fell open at his touch and a very large red and silver bot collapsed outwards with it, those gathered were surprised, shocked, but not panicked.

"Get the medic team!" screamed the green and silver hopeful pilot as she knelt by the stranger, inspecting what wounds she could. Several others sprinted away to do that, while others gathered closer.

"What's wrong with him, Havelock?"

"I'm not sure…" Her fingers traced over a scorched torso plate, the melted colors on the side armor and hands. Green optics flickered on briefly with a low snarl of pain, and she withdrew her fingers quickly. "Hey! Hey, wake up!"

They flickered again, finally staying on dimly, far too dimly for her liking.

"….Guardian," the stranger gasped faintly.

"They're all gone on that meeting call!" cried a bystander from the back of the mob.

"Don't worry," soothed Havelock, setting her hand where there seemed to be the least amount of damage. "We'll take care of you."

This seemed to calm down the stranger, though he suddenly flung himself into a sitting position, clutching his head and torso with obvious agony.

"Don't move!" cried Havelock, seizing her hands onto his. "You've been damaged!"

"You have NO idea," came a low reply, and she stared, blinking.

"…what did you say?" she whispered, and the brilliance of the emerald optics bore into her as easily as a drill.

The answer, when it came, was low, and she barely heard it. "….you're a fem?"

"Yes," she whispered, not certain what that had to do with anything. The stranger was obviously damaged; perhaps he was delirious as well, circuitry damaged. "….why?"

"It's just that….that…." So soft, so faint, and Havelock was entirely unaware that the rest of the crowd was staring.

"Get the medics!" she cried to them, turning back to the optics. "Just what?"

"I've never killed a female before," came a low growling response, and as the words struck home, as she blinked and realized and tried to pull back, the hands beneath hers seized her wrists, compressing with enough force to dent the armor and make her scream, but that high sound was lost in the orchestra of shrieks as the second bot stepped out from the shuttle, smeared with mech fluid and chuckling, then opened fire.

Arbox was still a small colony, and six hours later, the Guardians returned from their rendezvous with Command Central, and a scant hour before the Guardians' shuttle docked in the landing bay, the Dihex escape shuttle had departed.

"Captain?"

"Something wrong, Sibyl?" Captain Montrax glanced up from his checklist Central had given him, a mere itinerary of new criminals and pirate raiders in the Sycorax system. Most of them, he noted duly, were repeat offenders and had yet to be apprehended sometimes months after their crimes. This would soon change, he felt.

"Not wrong precisely, Captain…I've radioed the landing towers and there's no response."

"Check the radar on the mines," he said, all too aware of the last time this had happened. The towers had been abandoned because of two great cave-ins, and even with every colony member digging, over fifty lives had been lost.

A few clicks later, and: "Captain…I'm not picking up _any _signatures! Not one."

He growled. "The shuttle must be malfunctioning. Dock us down and run another scan. If there's been another cave-in, I want to know before we vacate."

"Not a single one?" came a hiss from another console.

"Not even in the caves…"

The shuttle landed, and when radar still revealed the same, Montrax ordered a sweep around the towers and then out to the caves. It was only when he heard a high gasp from one of his subcommanders that he halted orders.

"What!" he demanded. "What is it!"

Sibyl was the only one who could look at him, and her face was drawn dark and gray. "Captain…." was all she could manage before shock seized her again; she was not a Guardian for anything, but the radar clicked with the image before her console window, and she could only sit in disturbed amazement.

Montrax, as he was sitting higher and away from any console windows, had not seen, but, growing more apprehensive by the moment, stepped over behind Sibyl, and then he saw the mass of mech fluid sprayed over the landing bay, the swarm of dead bodies, perhaps ten, perhaps fifteen…and how the trail of silver and gold spirals and swirls littered not only the bay, but inside the windows of the landing towers, like eerie flowers of an alien world, and even on the outside of the towers…and how the colors smeared across, and in his mind he could see them across the entire _colony_, even in the mines.

He stared in mute agitation and sudden fear, naked and green across his spark, quicksilver and dark, and _that_ was when he saw the footprints. Two pairs of them, leading away from a massive explosion of mech fluid, trekking to the control towers, and in his mind, Montrax saw them on a colony-wide sweep, from the mines to the living quarters…and in his mind he suddenly realized _why_ the radar system had not picked up a single energy signature, and combined with the footprints, he was unaware when he began to gasp out screams of disbelief and denial.

* * *

><p>"Well…was it good for you?"<p>

Meagos glanced at his companion, and chuckled. "Yes. And you enjoyed yourself."

"I still don't see why I had to…_pretend_ that part," snarled X wearily, but in truth he _had_ enjoyed himself a lot. A very lot. He had learned quite a bit on his range around the colony with Meagos as well. Education and entertainment in one place…and not a technician in _sight_.

"You need repairs," Meagos said simply, and that of course was true. He had no doubt that X had survived far worse than a few half-hearted laser shots, but there was no need to tempt any form of destiny that was out there. He had had some time to think about that rather idiotic idea of a grand fate for every person.

_I suppose there COULD be a fate for every spark…most of them will end screaming it out, of course, since they are fated to come across me._

"I do not." Here he glanced at his passenger with another mech-streaked grin.

_Across us, rather._

"If there were Guardians there," he explained patiently, "they might have outnumbered us. They're fools…but armed fools. And armed fools are liable to shoot back."

"You are speaking to someone who has had his spark _shocked_, you realize," X said softly, optics gleaming as he relaxed, hands still on the meeting point of his seat restraints. Silver and gold streaked between each of his finger joints, and he could not recall any feeling in his past life that even came close to such sweet tension. Even in his dreams, it had been _nothing_ like this.

Meagos grinned; he knew that look on X's face. "I know. But, X….there is a huge array of stars out in that emptiness of space."

"So?"

"If each star is really a heat central of a sun…and many planets usually orbit suns….can you imagine how many planets and colonies we have yet to visit?"

Slowly another smile crept and broke on X's face. "I can only imagine….but I like it."

"Do you?"

"Yes." X looked at the pilot of the shuttle. "I do…." He grinned, displaying teeth and a tongue layered in gold and silver swirls, swallowing the excess.

"Did you ever imagine life would taste like this?"

X swallowed with a wild smirk. "Like mech fluid?"

Meagos glanced at him, and this time they did not chuckle. The shuttle rang with their satisfied, elated laughs, and the automatic pilot set their course for the next colony on Sycorax's neighboring planet's moon.

It was on that moon that they changed shuttle for ship: the _Pulsar _was a small cruiser built for wealthy patrons of Sycorax. In other words, the owners of the metal mines. As rich as they were, they had no problems in exchanging their very fast ship for the much smaller and slightly damaged shuttle. One reason was the fact that the owners knew all too well that it was never good business to argue with people like Meagos and X. Another reason was that they were dead.

Sirius, the moon, was another base dotted with colonies, but Sirius was also a leisure depot, a nice and well rested stop for the wealthy, though some smaller areas were devoted to the miners and other workers on Sycorax.

Sirius, as Meagos explained, would be a quick stop for them as well. It was well and fine to take entertainment and enjoy themselves, but chances were that Arbox's Guardians had returned by that time, and it would be prudently wise to leave the immediate area. X, who still had no real understanding of the Guardians, much less of the real world and reality outside Dihex, could only agree. But he never followed mindlessly. Even as they were obtaining the _Pulsar_, X took care of the three owners, and even suggested another shuttle. He was not bothered when Meagos insisted on the _Pulsar_. For one, the _Pulsar_ had a greater speed system.

They killed relatively few people on Sirius, only the owners of the ship and all the landing bay attendants, and it was not long later when the Guardians were summoned there as well. By that time, of course, the _Pulsar_ was a galaxy away.

They of course left the shuttle from Dihex. In hindsight, they perhaps should have destroyed it, as the shuttle was brimming with their evidence of life, but the Guardians and High Command's elite military forces knew as much from the shuttle as they had learned from Dihex. The two escapees were lethal and were to be brought in. Dead or alive _did_ matter for once. Dead was not an option.

"So you technically can't die then," Meagos said a few days later after Sirius. In a new solar system, the _Pulsar_'s radar was still picking up colonial life, or any planet sparsely populated with Cybertronians. Since Sirius, they had restocked on all of their supplies; the past owners of the ship had been _very_ obsessed and interested in weaponry. While weapons, Meagos and X both knew, would _never_ replace the bare feeling of mech in your finger joints, they _were_ interesting and rather fun tools. Bots screamed when they saw certain weapons. They only screamed half as loud with bare hands _after_ you had already started on them.

"I never did in Dihex," said X shortly; he had been free for barely seven days, and free life was still fairly new to him. Despite the recreation Meagos and he had entertained with, he was still wary of explaining more about the labs and the tests. For some reason, even though he knew it really _had_ been torture, not just tests, experiments, he didn't enjoy thinking about such things. That didn't mean he wouldn't. But he preferred to let his mind settle on the past seven days. Five of the seven days had been spent in the _Pulsar_, scanning for new planets, areas without High Command influence. They had once found a planet teaming with life…only to have radar reveal it was a Guardian training station.

They had no fear of Guardians. But on the other hand, X had no want to put himself (or Meagos) in a situation where they could not destroy, and then escape.

"But can you?"

"I don't know," X snarled, more severely than he had intended, and tried to ignore the puzzled look Meagos gave him. The past five days had not been solely silent. From Meagos, X had learned a lot. About Cybertron, about Dihex. The names of some of the heads of his project. And a hundred other things about life and general terms. What an R chamber was. Why there were two factions even after the war was over ("Because some people _like_ being part of something." "Even something so insanely stupid?" "And _that_, X, is the majority of people in a nutshell."). Why this, why that. It had been a very educational time, and Meagos had found himself nearly enjoying it.

And it was, in a way, flattering. Meagos had no patience to idiocy, but he knew X was no idiot. Inexperienced, yes. But stupid…no. So Meagos really did not mind or was bothered by the virgin mind and the constant questions. It helped, of course, that X did not want to know _everything_, like historical epics about the Great War. It was enough to know he had been created in Starscream's image. No, X was content to know about Cybertron and its colonies. Nothing else really mattered; as long as he could attempt to fit in with the general populous, he felt safe. Safer.

"Where are we going?" X demanded; it was easier to change the subject. He still despised even _thinking_ about Dihex; the fact he had been an unwilling test subject did not, in some vague dark and still foolish part of his mind, change the fact he had been a victim. It still enraged him to even grasp such a concept. However, Meagos did not seem to see it as such; in his mind, from what X could tell, X was still somewhat awe-inspiring in the sheer fact he _might_ be immortal. That and the fact X had warmed so readily to aid Meagos. Of course, X felt, surely Meagos _knew_ he would have aided in whatever Meagos wanted (within reason, naturally) after they had escaped, be it mining or mocking Guardians. For how long was still the question.

"Altair-5."

"Which is…?"

"A trading post." Meagos grinned, and X echoed the feature back. They were back on neutral ground here.

"A good one?"

"With diversions? Oh yes. I was there last a few months ago. Very…_intense_ kind of life. But it's only one, really. There are several kinds out there."

X nodded; it sounded even better than Sycorax. Then again, he had very little to compare anything to still. He was well aware how unskilled he was, and did not like that fact much either.

_Still…a week duration. _Much more than he had _ever_ expected…or dared to dream about.

"I think we can enjoy ourselves there for a while," Meagos offered. "And perhaps get a little…cleaned up." He flicked a hand meaningfully at X; they were both still mostly coated in old mech. The inside of the _Pulsar_'s control station room reeked of the stench; the smell, however, quite failed to bother either of the robots.

"I hope so."

X was staring out the window again; he had yet to master the controls of _any_ ship or shuttle. He had no doubt that he would someday, however. Meagos had already offered, indirectly (he seemed to know enough not to offer _openly_ how to show how something worked), to show him how. It was only a matter of time before he accepted, indirectly, of course.

It was an odd thing, but something X had come to realize; all of his life he had been solitary, and having Meagos around as a teacher, an equal, a…comrade (was that stretching the word? He thought about it, and decided it did not.) perhaps should have alarmed him. But rather they seemed to get along with ease. They had not opposed each other's wants or needs to destroy the others…the weak, the stupid, the screaming pointless masses.

"Meagos?" he asked, after a pause; his hands still rested on the seat's restraints. He had learned how to operate them, but they would always, on some primitive level he could never sway, alarm him.

"What?" The teal bot was watching the radar, setting their course.

"Do you know yet?"

"Do I know what?" A tinge of irritability.

"Why you brought me out of Dihex."

Meagos blinked. "Does it really matter?"

"…I suppose not." And perhaps it did not. But it was still a question that caused X some amount of worry. He had learned not only from Meagos terms and words, but from several discs of information in the _Pulsar_'s living quarters. Its past owners had enjoyed things called, for some insane reason, he was certain, the 'classics.' Fictional, not real tales, but still enjoyable…and somewhat pertaining of and with information.

"Why do you ask?" Meagos relaxed; it might take another ten hours, but they would be at Altair-5 by then.

"I was just…curious." A word X had learned, one he was certain he was overusing. _Curious_. To want to know how and why about everything. It applied to him, and he was well aware of that.

"It wasn't planned, if that is what you meant. I didn't even know you existed, remember?"

"I remember." _Then why DOES it matter?_ X didn't know; he only knew on some level that it _did_. "Why didn't you leave me there then?"

There was a pause of silence from the pilot. "I didn't want to," he said finally.

"Why?"

"Does it matter?"

"It does," insisted X. "I want to know. It does matter."

"Fine," sighed Meagos, but he could still not explain to himself entirely. "You didn't seem like the rest of them. The techs, the scientists. Dragon. You didn't seem so…_stupid_. You seemed normal."

"_Normal_?" It sounded alien, even from Meagos. A joke. A prank. Cruel and unusual.

"Like me, I meant." And at this X had to hesitate and stare at him.

"I'm not," he said slowly and pointedly, "_like_ you."

"Of course you are," and coming from him it nearly sounded like a small matter, an ordinary matter. "You're like me. We both despise the weak. We both understand that they don't deserve to live. We both-"

"Didn't start out as _protoforms_."

Meagos paused. "I meant now. We are like each other. Very much so, I'd say."

"I meant before we…escaped. Before you let me loose."

"I didn't do it alone. As I recall, you _did_ help."

There came no reply back, so Meagos continued. "Well…you did, X." He paused. "Why are you asking this? You were a protoform. So what? You're not anymore. You're free, and I'm free, and we're never going _back_ to how we were. You, at Dihex, and me…well, being extremely stupid and wanting, _wanting_ of all things to defend those…_things!_"

"I _used_ to be-"

"A protoform?" Meagos sighed. "Yes, I know, change the disc already. Get this: you're _free_. As in you're _not_ anymore! Your name isn't Protoform X, it's X. There IS a difference. You left the protoform part back at Dihex. You're X. You're one of the banes of civilization now, of the weak and stupid and inane. You're a death."

"And what are you?" X demanded, optics glistening. Of course Meagos was right. _He is._

"Me?" Meagos grinned. "Another cancer of all worlds. Between the two of us, X…there's a _lot_ of things we can do. The first being to take out all the stupid, the idiots…and enjoying ourselves at the same time. I think we deserve to, after all. It's what we are."

"What's that?"

"Evidence."

"About?"

"The theory of evolution. The strong survive, the weak fuel them in that survival." He grinned in the brightness of the _Pulsar_, the darkness of space, and his crimson optics gleamed like supernovas into the green of X's. "We've drunk from mech fluid slashed from throats and central veins. We've devoured sparks as…treats. Just rewards. Because this _is_ what we are. Evolutionary wonders of death and destruction…and not a protoform in sight."

X could only grin back. "And this is the natural order of things?"

"Natural? Who gives a slag about _natural_? It's the way things are. That's enough for me." Meagos curled his fingers around a speed dialer to up the fuel intake of the ship. "Besides…I almost took care of these prey, and you were used as fuel by them _for_ them for….well, forever. I think it's time we had our own time to enjoy the meal."

"And X?" asked the ex-protoform.

"What about it?"

"It's a project name."

"Change it if that's how you see it. It's a project name, so? The fools who named it such are all dead now. Probably already been melted down for scrap. What does it matter what they intended? They never intended you to be _free_. And here you are."

"Yes…" X nodded. Here he was…and here he intended to stay.

"So why do you keep asking why I let you come?"

X paused; he knew enough about the term _trust_ from reading and scouring whatever information he had been able from the discs and other clues about the past owners. His prey held trust in strange things: in images, frail weapons which bent at the first touch, buildings, names. Did he trust Meagos?

"Because…I saw no reason for you to."

"And do you wonder why I never _left_ you on any of those colonies?"

X had to nod; it _had_ been plaguing him for some days.

"Did it ever occur to you that I might…" _Here it comes_. But it had been coming for a long time, hadn't it? A week, so short, so long. So filled with change. "…might _like_ having you around?"

X stared at him. _Do I? Do I really?_

"…after all, you can make a bot scream in no time." Meagos grinned, and of course X saw beneath that exterior feature. In seven days he had learned a lot about his form, its abilities, and he had been very pleased to understand how sensitive his radar system was. Of course, he had never _had_ such a thing in Dihex. At least, he had never understood it to be so. But now the novelty of _feeling_ other sparks before he tore into them…perhaps radar was the wrong word. Perhaps it was because his spark was so strong, that it could sense the death in others. And relish it utterly.

So Meagos was smiling, but he meant more than the killing. It was true then. A comrade? The word fit. Others did as well.

_Do I? …I think I do. I think I really do._

"You're not so bad yourself," he said honestly, and was fairly certain Meagos picked up beyond his exterior as well. Which, of course, he did.

* * *

><p>Days passed and melded into the next. And the next, and the next, and gradually even the weeks came. The console's lights blurred with the travels; the stars and planets began to shift but never looked the exact same. Nor did the looks on the faces of the prey. Each screamed, each wailed, and sometimes even tried to bargain or plead. The sounds they made as they were dying differed, and the taste of each death was sweeter than the last.<p>

In the thirty days that had passed since he had last seen Dihex, X had expanded what little he had known of any world to now knowing many. He was still a bit shaky on the _Astral_'s (the _Pulsar_ had been abandoned on Altair-5, and the _Rayfire_ on the colony Alphix) controls, but was getting better (the sole reason they abandoned ships was merely because they would get damaged, either from last minute defenses, or from the two themselves), better enough to actually pilot for a few days, with Meagos watching with little alarm. The radar on the _Astral_ was much better than even the _Pulsar_. It was rather hard to damage a ship on passing meteors when you could find them over miles away.

The ship's controls. Branches of Cybertron High Command government. Ship designs, transformation designs, spark patterns and locations per design (though he could usually sense them without knowing the location). Weapons, tools, the learning how to fashion them both from ordinary things ("Like what?" "Oh….arms, legs, that kind of thing.") Male and female relations ("Who cares?" "I thought you'd want to know." "Yes, but only worthwhile things!"). And discs and discs of knowledge. X felt full after every new session, every new lesson, every new colony or spaceport. Yet, like after another massacre, it was a pleasant kind of saturated feeling.

The days passed, time passed, and with it, passed Meagos and X. Each new colony was something new, a treat, a gift, and they had come to expect certain things. Guardians were easily dispatched, and any other forms of guards or defenses were interesting but hardly challenges. The days passed and melded and melted into each other, and with each came a new target, new prey, and X and Meagos both had discovered, privately still, how grand life truly was with freedom of this sort.

Exactly thirty-one days after the death of every technician in Dihexaline labs, the _Astral_ landed on Starbase Tetrala. It never took off again. The two did not see each other again.

Dihexaline, in cooperation with High Command, as well as elite force teams of mercenaries, had finally managed to track down the pair via radar. Meagos' signature was on file, but it was X they were truly after, or so was told to the force teams.

They managed, with a lot of effort, skill, and quite a bit of luck to capture the two together, and alive. According to the reports they gave to Dihex, the _Astral_ had landed only an hour before the strike teams arrived. The strikers tracked down the pair, disabled the ship, and when the force teams arrived, very heavily armed, they attacked the two head-on. While X and Meagos fought back, they were surrounded from the backside by special Guardian units. It took nearly twenty minutes to bring the pair down and out into stasis; Meagos had a special electrical unit fired upon his torso. Upon landing, it attached there and released enough pent-up energy to power a large shuttle. X, being distracted during that point in time, was eventually shocked into stasis. He was nearly in two pieces by the time he fell.

X was taken back to Dihexaline Laboratories. Meagos went to the same place, but understandably so, to a different level and for different treatment.

Thirty-one days and exactly four hours to the very minute, X was back in a room very similar to the one he had once escaped from. The only difference was that this one was more reinforced and secret. And that since Ivex was dead, and no successor appointed, there was only one head on the project of protoform X. He was still as talkative as ever.

* * *

><p><em>Meagos…Meagos…where are you?<em>

_He was not aware he had spoken, even barely aloud for a technician to look at him with a sort of dull apathy. _

_Meagos, he gasped faintly, and for some reason he knew something had gone terribly wrong, something had gone wrong at Tetrala, something had gone too wrong, so very wrong. He could barely remember the Guardians, the attack, and then the sudden agony…and seeing Meagos, hearing him shriek and hearing his spark for the last time, seeing him fall and feeling a nearly equal pain wail throughout him. He dimly remembered the darkness, and now there was still darkness, but not so deep, so rich. He could see the tech, and more than that, he could feel the bonds. Restraints, and the truth was bitter and aching deeply, too deep. He felt more than his spark wail in despair, and yes, it was despair, not fear, but a terrible realization of misery. Not true, it can't be, it was, of course. The natural order of things._

_He tried to repeat his name, but then even the power of speech was lost utterly; he felt something cold latch onto his vocal unit, and the sound was rendered silent. Mute. Voiceless in the darkness that was not quite darkness, and in it he saw crimson. Bright crimson red, and in a moment of lunacy that he KNEW was lunacy, he thought it was HIM. Meagos had come back, had somehow found him again._

_The red didn't speak to him, and the lunacy passed, and for once he was nearly afraid. But more than the tinge of fear was the utter and simple shriek of denial and misery, it couldn't BE like this, something had gone wrong, the unnatural order had been disturbed, evolution was revving backwards, and even as all this raced through his mind, the red stepped before him, and he knew who it was even through the distant rambling of denial. His optics were suddenly and achingly wrenched out and off in a flower blooming in crimson darkness, and the last thing he would see for several days was the red, was Dragon staring down at him with a strange smile on his face._


	3. Chapter 3

Cat and Mouse

_Cat and mouse_

_tis but a feast_

_in the end, who will eat..._

_Living in the modern age_

_death for virtue is the wage_

_So it seems in darker hours_

_Evil wins, kindness cowers._

_Ruled by violence and vice_

_We all stand upon thin ice_

_Are we brave or are we mice_

_here upon such thin, thin ice?_

_Dare we linger, dare we skate?_

_Dare we laugh or celebrate,_

_knowing we may strain the ice?_

_Preserve the ice at any price?_

_Dean Koontz_

_The Book of Counted Sorrows_

Dragon, X. Meagos. For some reason it was raining, and the water splatters echoed and streaked down the window of his quarters. Dragon. One drop. Dihex. Two. Meagos. Dragon, one, Dihex, two. Three, Meagos. Four, X. Four, himself.

Rampage knew he was awake, but at the same time, remembering, dreaming in recharge, was preferred. It was so much easier to rage at the sheer injustice of every world than dare to try and change it.

_Try to? What have I been doing all this life of mine?_

One drop, two, three, ten. Dragon, Dihex, Meagos, escape. The second escape from Dihexaline, he had been alone. But he had not gone without information. He had escaped, and this time Dihex had been destroyed, been nearly detonated in chemical explosions. But knowing them, knowing High Command, or at least of them, he doubted it was still in rubble. No doubt it had been rebuilt. After all, he had been recaptured a second time. And now here he was.

_And Meagos, here he is too._

He wondered, not for the first time, what they had precisely done to him. Reprogramming was obviously the first answer. Perhaps erasing memories. After all, what a black mark would have been on Dihex had anyone discovered that they had not only allowed a rampaging Meagos to escape, but he had been able to leave with a protoform experiment, hadn't he? Of course. What kind of security was that? Rampage had to admit (grudgingly, of course) that even Megatron had better measures than Dihex.

_And what does THAT say about the government?_

No. He had known from the minute he left Dihex alone that Meagos was still alive. Being a Guardian on some colony Omicron. Tracking him down had been easy; watching him in action even more so. And only a minute of watching that action was enough to spur on and expand that raw rage as to what had happened to Meagos. How different he was then...and now, of course.

_And yet it's a good thing when Maximals do reprogramming...when Megatron does it, it's a tragedy._

He felt his claws clenching in vague memory. After Meagos and he had been captured, surely long after Meagos had been reprogrammed or unprogrammed or whatever the technical terms were, the tests had started again, and for several weeks, they had been so much _worse_. Locking his systems into shocking him whenever he tried to recharge. Stabbing his spark, and then finding ways of making him stay conscious and online during such sessions. The shock boxes surpassed even the number three. And then they had slowed down again; the tests reverted back to their old fashion. He imagined the first furies of them had been as a grim reminder as to who was in charge of his life. He had known it then, of course, and he remembered it now. They were. Had been. And now it was only Megatron.

_He should have been working WITH High Command. He would have enjoyed the perks._ It was a toxic thought, but that was all Rampage could afford for now. Forever, even. He had escaped again in another flurry of explosions and fire and electrical haywire, again because of a mistake, a technicality that someone had forgotten to check how tight a restraint was. And then he had nearly been free again...but there had been a loose end, hadn't there? He remembered killing Ivex before, but he had not know that Ivex was one of the head researchers who had created his spark. He knew at the time of his second escape who else had, and was.

"Dragon," he hissed softly, and yes, that chatterbox who had never outgrown that flaw had discovered, like everyone else in Dihex, how badly some people wanted freedom. How much they were willing to go through and endure...and how it was always much much more than the oppressors.

* * *

><p><em>"Nooooo," the red bot tried to gasp, but with limited energon reaching his head and vocal units, it came out as a hissing sound, like something inflated deflating slowly. His optics were dull, their glass shattered, and the rest of him leaked steadily onto the ground. X appeared not to notice.<em>

_"You will answer me," he said simply, and that was the truth. He had one of his hands supporting the head of the protoform project. The other was wrist-deep into the chest cavity of the very same bot._

_"Please," Dragon tried again to say, and then could only scream, then gargle as mech fluid rippled through his chest and up his throat, spilling warmly onto X's arms. _

_"Password," repeated X. "Where is he? Tell me and you die now, quickly."_

_The lights in Dragon's optics finally went out, and amidst the now steady stream of silver and gold, he managed to spit out the main computer code passwords, which X would use to erase the security (Dihex was dead now, he certainly had the time) camera recorders, and as well to gain access to an escape shuttle. Security HAD beefed up somewhat._

_"What is his name now?" X demanded, letting his fingers coil and curl around a circuit of a motherboard, lightly twisting and snapping. Dragon could only shudder in agony, unable to see, only able to barely understand that he was not dead yet. "WHAT is his name, Dragon!"_

_"Meagos," came another gasp._

_"I checked the computers. His name's not there. What is it? Where is he? WHERE IS HE? WHAT is his name?"_

_"Me, me...me..." Dragon drawled off, and for a scant moment X thought he was brain-dead, his spark dimly alive and awake. And then came the softer whisper of the dying, and after those words X did as he had offered in promise; he devoured the bittersweet spark: "...Omicron...DepthCharge..."_

* * *

><p>Colony Omicron, population zero. Status: dead. Starbase Rugby, population zero, status dead. Meagos, population one. Status: gone, missing, reprogrammed. Possibly dead.<p>

As if any of this was _news_.

The only question, if there _was_ indeed any questions left….was what he planned to do about this knowledge. Rampage was fairly certain (if not precisely _positive_) that DepthCharge remembered nothing about Meagos. High Command and Dihex would have taken care of _that_.

_The question is…the question is…? And this we'll defend?_

The question also was if DepthCharge retained _any_ memories. Anything at all. A face, a name, a _word_. Rampage could build upon those. He couldn't start without foundation.

_And why? Why even bother?_

_Because_…. And that was the sticky part of it all, to be sure. Because he _had_ to. He wanted to. He wanted Meagos _back_. They should have never been captured.

_Haven't these people ever heard of EVOLUTION?_

The question also was…if there _was_ no Meagos left, if he indeed was dead and gone, and the technicians correct…what then? What could he do then?

Rampage clenched his claws again. He knew, of course.

_It's not as if I've never killed before. And DepthCharge is…NOT Meagos. DepthCharge is prey. Meagos was…is…was is my ally. Comrade. Friend. _

_If Meagos is dead, then the Guardian has no worth to me_.

He transformed and set out for patrol, questions, as always, unanswered.

For once Primal had halted his own stupidity; if nothing else, that was what DepthCharge hated the _most_ about the ape. The sheer idiocy of him, and as for the rest of the Maximals…well, they had their moments of sanity. But they were truly abusing the privilege of stupidity.

_I was…I was too, once. Stupid, that is. I didn't see X coming…not at Omicron, not at Rugby. And Alphix, no one TOLD me about Alphix!_

_And no one told me how X knew me either…_

Of course, he had not _asked_. At the time, there had been more pressing matters. Omicron, for one. Then Rugby. And the messages. _Here kitty kitty…but it's only ONE._

He had not thought to ask anyone, and now he was the only one with any information. But the holes were large, he knew, simply _too_ large. How could a protoform locked away in Dihex have heard of him, much less tracked him down? There were countless colonies and planets between Cybertron and Omicron, but X had come _there_. To Omicron, and then to Rugby, and left messages at them both, with the intent that he, DepthCharge, find them.

_What does he know? What does he know that I don't?_

_And why do I care?_

That was the difficult item. He _didn't_ care; what mattered now was justice, was finding and killing X as he should have been killed long ago. He knew that; it was justice, _not_ revenge, not anything of that sort. Justice…but he was finding and had been finding that he _did_ in fact care.

It didn't matter, of course, he felt. So what if X had known him before, somehow, from some eerie odd source? Some tech might have mentioned DepthCharge to X…save DepthCharge had never been that popular as a Guardian until _after_ the massacres. It was a chance, still, however.

It was madness, and like madness, it attacked at the worst times. At times he couldn't even concentrate on something as simple as monitor duty (of course all he was monitoring was Rampage's movements…the rest of the Predacons he could care less about) or as complex as plotting new ways to get the spark box from Megatron. The curiosity, the _wonder_ of it all…lunacy, and he knew it.

_You have to do something about it then._

He knew that too. The only problem, the only person he could ask would be Rampage…and nothing the beast said would be true. Even madness was better than deceit.

_And this we'll defend_, he thought with disgust as he left the Axalon, glaring at the ship and its inhabitants. He had never sworn to defend Optimus.

_But I wasn't good enough even for Omicron…_

He closed his mind on that. It was not that he had not been good enough; it was that X was bad enough.

_How did he know me? HOW?_

That was the million credit question, and he knew it. Unanswered, but perhaps soon, that would change.

* * *

><p>It truly <em>was<em> a piece of work, a novelty of art, and even Quickstrike understood that. And like all true pieces of work, it was original, and never too far from its owner.

Megatron was never plagued with nightmares, but nor was he foolish enough to believe that Rampage would not be tempted to try and take the spark box, and the core of his spark, back. So the box never left his sight, and was always within reach.

He did not have to use it often; Rampage seemed to have learned who was in control. That didn't mean, of course, that the box could not be used for other purposes. In example, most Predacons, by nature alone, were never too pressed with deadlines or with punctuality. They tended to treat the idea of being on time as an option or suggestion; as such, that often meant that Megatron would have to wait to dole out punishment for the offense later. With Rampage, it merely took a few hand flexes, and he would be at Megatron's throne within minutes. Megatron didn't care about his turn of speed, as long as the crab arrived.

"Rampage?" he said casually, but the crab was hardly dense enough to miss the lead tones under the otherwise carefree voice. Trembling with barely disguised rage (all of which Megatron picked up, and personally enjoyed; the crab _did_ know who was in control. He could hate it all he wanted, as long as he did not forget.), the crab stilled, waiting for further words.

"You will be back in three hours," the tyrant continued, and his hand lightly closed on the box, not enough to compress the spark in the shining shards, but enough to make the crab duck to the ground in reflex. "And be sure to set up an interference station in Sector Nado. The Maximals are getting too curious about that area for my liking."

Rampage was silent; for him, that was basically assent. When no more words came forth, he left, this time to the supplies chamber. Megatron did not compress his hand into a much-enjoyed fist. No…he decided he would wait until later. Giving the crab an illusion of freedom, only to remind him who really _was_ free, often made up for the various idiocies of his other Predacons.

_If he is still alive under that programming…_

Rampage clamped that thought closed as easily as he shut the bottom supports into place; setting up stations like this, like nearly _everything_ the Predacons did, was menial at best and otherwise pointless. And hoping had gotten him nothing in life thus far.

_But if he is…or if he is but can't get out, how can I bring him free?_

Free from the tyranny of forced programming, freed by a current slave. The irony of ironies, but it was not enough to crack his face into a grin. A _slave_.

_You're free, and I'm free, and we're never going back to how we were. You, at Dihex, and me…well, being extremely stupid and wanting, wanting of all things to defend those…things!_

"You were wrong, old friend," Rampage hissed softly, setting the tower into place; slowly its console lit with power as it activated, blocking radar effectively for _both_ factions. Bittersweet victory, indeed. "You were so wrong about that."

_And how I wish he wasn't._

But the question of how remained. Rampage had learned a lot from the Predacons, mostly through their computers, but very few files explained how to undo programming, or redo it. Such topics seemed to be taboo at best. And the only Predacon who _might_ have had any information to offer was Tarantulas. And knowing the arachnid, he would say _anything_ to make Rampage leave him alone, and in one piece this time. He would give false information, he would make things up, and he certainly wouldn't tell a word of truth. The spider was out.

There was also, he knew darkly, the chance that the programming _might_ not be alterable. Whatever Dihex had done, it might have erased Meagos completely.

_If that is the case…better I get rid of this imposter. _True, Meagos' form was very similar to DepthCharge's. The beast mode had certainly added parts, as alternative modes tended to, but the face was different around the mouth. The optics were the same color, but the burn in them was a fire reversed and turned in on itself, devouring as a self cannibal.

_And one less Maximal_. As if he _cared_ about this foolish war. Prey fighting prey. Leashing the predator, and then leashing another so tightly he had become prey too. Whether or not the leash could be severed and the _real_ beast could returned was yet to be determined.

_If he can come back…I will bring him._

And why? Why, as he had once asked Meagos repeatedly? Why?

_Because. Because he is MINE._

That was true. Dihexaline Labs had given him life, but had taken from him freedom on two occasions, the right to recharge, the right to energon, simple rights _given_ to _every_ prey person. They had taken from him every form of freedom…and they had taken his only friend. Rampage had gained back the former. The latter was still lost to him.

_But like freedom…I may yet have him back._

_And if I cannot…if I cannot, then DepthCharge still has no worth. Killing him will be pleasure, if only in Meagos' memory._

Rampage could still sense sparks; after all, he had sensed DepthCharge even from space. His systems, his _spark_ was that sensitive. So even with the loss of normal radar, he was not surprised to find that DepthCharge was nearby. But he also knew enough that the ray would never listen to him face to face…however, if there was no target, perhaps there was hope.

He settled into hiding in his beast mode; crabs were naturally suited for such a life and niche, and even a very large monstrous crab had the edge still. Rampage did not have to wait long.

* * *

><p>DepthCharge had been tracking via radar, and when that went out, he knew there was an interference station around. But he also knew that Rampage could not have gotten away so quickly. No…and knowing the monster, he was still around. Waiting, watching. Watching <em>him<em>, of course.

"I know you're here, X," he volunteered to the empty area as he stepped closer to the station. Destroying it was secondary to Rampage, of course. But if destroying it _helped_ getting that primary prize…

"Oh, do you, Fishface?" came that hateful voice. "Do you really?"

"Show yourself," spat DepthCharge, pulling his remora blaster out.

"Or what?" Light, challenging, enjoying this.

"Show yourself, X," he growled. He scanned over the nearby shrubbery the best he could, but there were no telltale signs. Someone as large as Rampage, however, could not simply _disappear_.

"What do you defend, Meagos?" Rampage called out lightly. "_What do you defend now?_"

"You're insane."

"So they've said."

DepthCharge aimed his blaster at the station. He had to ask. "Who is Meagos, X? Let me guess…another colony. Another starbase."

The laughter was cold and dark, like a river running under ice. "No…no, DepthCharge, Fishface. You have some names…I have some. X and Rampage. But for you…it's Meagos and DepthCharge."

The ray was silent. _Lies. All lies. What did I expect from this? _"You're lying."

"Don't you _wish_," came the spat reply.

"I've never heard that name before in my life!"

"And you remember Dihex, don't you?" crooned Rampage; he watched the ray calmly, even though he trembled in anticipation. "Dihexaline Labs? That's where you met me, Meagos."

Only silence from the ray. "Lies," he finally said. "_Lies_."

"You don't remember, do you?" Soft, cold. "No…of course not. You don't remember Dihex…you don't remember Ivex, or even Dragon. That red chatterbox, you called him."

"Shut up, X," snapped the ray. "Whatever you're trying, it's not going to work."

_Don't I know it_, thought Rampage dully, and slowly let the disc slide from a notch in his claws. He had discovered some time ago the usefulness of pretending to pay attention while on monitor duty. It had taken weeks, but Megatron finally trusted him on it alone and unsupervised.

The _Darkside_'s computers had not held any helpful information; it was, after all, a war ship. A _Predacon_ war ship. And the bot who had procured it had had no interest in High Command, save perhaps how to bring that government to its knees.

Sentinel, on the other hand, had been part of the Maximals' arsenal until recently, and it was not only a defense system, but a keeper of records. And files. Most of them, Rampage had not been surprised to find, were coded and severely under lock and key. In other words, they were delicacies to Megatron and Tarantulas, and they were hence decoded, and then _recoded_ in Predacon script.

It had been the _Axalon_'s aim and intent to leave Rampage's pod somewhere cold, somewhere barren, desolate, lifeless. Those were the exact words used in the reports about him, and Rampage knew all about those because he had read each and every one. They had not been flattering…but they _had_ been filled with information. Mostly about him, but either Primal had been a close follower of the X project, or because he was simply trusted enough in getting rid of it, there were profiles of Dihex techs and scientists in the vastness of information. Information Megatron had not truly cared about; there was more than enough from Sentinel's defenses and the Maximal crew's profiles to keep him interested. He knew what he needed to about Rampage: how to control him.

And how odd it had been to read about his old 'friends.' Dragon, for one. Dragon, and Ivex, and some hundred other techs and scientists…and then there had been some images. Crew profiles. A few pictures of Dihex before its grand destruction. They were all dated. And in one image, a shot of Dragon with another tech, there was Meagos. In the background, but it was _him_.

Rampage had copies of this image, of course. He kept them in subspace, because if nothing else they were evidence that Meagos _had_ existed. He did not expect justice, of course, if Meagos truly was dead. He was not that stupid.

"Do you remember me?" he called out lightly. _Let him shoot the station. Go ahead._ "Do you remember me at Dihex, Fishface?"

DepthCharge was silent; here it was, and he knew it utterly. Here it was, the answer, the question, but the source was poison, the answer a lie. Deceit. "X," he started, uncertain of what he was about to say.

"I remember _you_ there, Meagos…I remember you all too well," Rampage had time to say, and transformed the same moment as DepthCharge fired on the station. He drew his blaster back around to the crab, but three rapid-fire missiles from Rampage's tank barrels knocked him back, toppling the interference tower, and blaring the radar nearly audibly loud.

DepthCharge had time for one quick yell of surprise, and then another missile tore his blaster from his hands, nearly taking his hands in the blast, and even as he tried to get up from the ground, Rampage, who had transformed to bot mode by then, seized him hard, slamming him back to the ground. DepthCharge roared, trying to get up with more fervor, only to feel something clamp against his disc launcher, and he realized that a second after he fired.

The disc ricocheted in his chest, blasting out his back, and left him in stasis. Rampage stared at him cautiously, but DepthCharge's (or was it Meagos?) spark was strong still, merely not conscious.

_Good. Good._

He removed the image hologram disc from subspace and carefully fixed it in a torn part of the ray's hands. Hidden under some ripped armor, no doubt it would stay in place, but also be a pain enough for the ray to remove it, when he woke up.

The station was not ruined. Rampage managed to move it into another clearing, and reset it there. The only reason, of course, that he bothered was not for Megatron's benefit. If Meagos _was_ alive, he would need some time to prepare. And that was time in which he would have to think clearly, and not have his mind and body, not to mention spark, flooded with pain.

He left DepthCharge in the clearing, resumed patrol, and returned to base an hour early.

* * *

><p>DepthCharge awoke in the Ark on the way to the R chamber. They had managed to salvage only one from the <em>Axalon<em>, but it had to do. He jerked awake with a start, making Silverbolt and Cheetor nearly drop him in surprise. They stepped back, somewhat alarmed, as the ray stood up easily.

"What happened?" he demanded with a snarl, but his hands questing over the greatest injury, his chest, explained it all. Stupidity again. _He had been stupid with Rampage_. It could have cost him his life. Instead it was merely his pride, but sometime the two were hard to distinguish.

"You need the R chamber, DepthCharge," insisted Silverbolt, and for once the ray was not going to argue. His torso felt scorched, and he was in no condition, he had to admit grudgingly, to return to find X.

"Fine," he snapped, and stalked toward the chamber, ignoring the other two Maximals as they trailed behind him with some amount of worry. He continued to overlook them when something small struck the inside of his hand; with a wince, he stopped, glaring at the offensive metal shard. The small gleam of gray was barely distinguishable from his fingers, but it was enough that he could draw it out.

The source of annoyance pain was a disc. A shine revealed a holographic gleam on its surface, and he eyed it only for a second before subspacing it. The last thing he needed was the Maximals asking about such a thing. Of course, he knew where it had come from. Where else, save Rampage?

_Throw it away! It's nothing but LIES and you know it_! Perhaps…but perhaps Rampage had not _intended_ to lose this disc. _What kind of slag is THAT? It was embedded in your armor! Do you think he was trying to massage you or something? He LEFT it there on purpose!_

The ray ignored these voices as he stepped into the R. Purposeful or not, the disc might be useful. It might, if nothing else, show some weakness in Rampage.

The cooling sensation of repairs began, and DepthCharge slipped into a form of recharge stasis, unknowing, and even had he known, not caring that the two Maximals were watching him still.

For once the _Ark_'s main room was empty, and DepthCharge was able to leave the ancient ship that had caused him so much lost time in the search for Rampage. X, Rampage, it didn't matter. None of the Maximals saw him leave, or if they did, they had, in his opinion, wisely decided to let him get to work. Let them defend some hunk of metal buried in the dirt.

He took to flight mode, the disc still in subspace, and coasted over and under to his underwater base. It was nowhere as nice as his ship had ever been; in fact, it was nothing but a large cavern in the ocean, but it _did_ have the advantage of air pockets and, due to some random land shifts, a large area of flat surface. Once the walls of the craggy cavern had been unmarked, but now they were scarred and scrawled with ideas, sketches of weaknesses in normal bot bodies (which might or might not apply to Rampage, but it _was_ worth a shot), and other items of interest. There was a even a very small computer, nothing more than a disc reader, with limited radar capacities, but it was really amazing what things Rhinox _thought_ he was missing but always blamed Rattrap for.

He had no defense system for this hideaway, but the natural sea had provided enough. The passageway was lined with toxic organic animals that clung to the walls and devoured most fish that passed. The passageway was also narrow enough that DepthCharge could barely fit through and in it, but he did not mind the tight squeeze. He would have even found a hideaway on land in a tree if that had been the only resort. He was a solitary creature, and these Maximals he could care less for.

Plus it gave him time to think.

He transformed to bot mode, checking over the small room; it would barely have fit himself and Primal in the best of times, and since his 'wings' were so large, they often scraped against the ceiling, crumbling bits of salty rock to the ground or the water itself. But his computer was safe where he had left it, on the highest naturally-formed shelf he could find. He drew it down, blew off some salt dust, and clicked it on. The monitor slowly warmed to life, and as it did so, he seated himself, leaning against the wall, and brought out the disc. It gleamed coolly in his hands.

It was about X, he knew it. It _had_ to be.

_Rampage left it. You KNOW it's a lie! A lie!_

_He didn't. He might have dropped it._

_Do you realize how stupid you sound?_ And then the computer monitor flared to life. He watched it grimly, shutting the voices down, and lifted the disc to the light of the monitor.

He had been correct after all; there _was_ a holographic image on it. But it had either been damaged when X dropped it (left it, dropped it, did it matter, really?), or when he had scraped it from his hand armor, because the image was blurred and scratched. He thought he saw a building in the scratches, but that meant nothing.

_Are you insane! What are you doing? Don't read this thing, don't do anything but destroy it! It's poison, it's from Rampage! What do you need, a skull and crossbones on this to realize it's nothing but deceit?_

He growled and inserted the disc. The computer whirred briefly, then brought up several file folders. And an image.

DepthCharge stared at the computer; he knew enough about Dihexaline Labs, had _studied_ it in as much detail as was available, and had once even been a supporter of the techs there until X had destroyed the place. He remembered vaguely that early in his career, he had even volunteered there for a time for research purposes. So he knew enough about Dihex to recognize the image as its main entrance room. He did not, however, know all the techs and faces in the image, but thankfully (or unthankfully, he was still very uncertain as to this image, or its importance), there was a data key identifying every face in the image. There was a blue bot, there was some green and gold, there was some red-

He stared at the red bot, who took up most of the lower frame. Somehow he looked _familiar_…which was impossible, since DepthCharge remembered faces quite well. Even this bot's name, _Dragon_, seemed familiar. But it was hardly an uncommon name; on Cybertron, some time ago, it had been fashionable to rename yourself as creatures of old: Dragon, Sphinx. Stupid things, _pointless_ things. But the red face stared back at him almost condemningly.

"What…" DepthCharge hissed, because another face struck out from the picture at him. He knew that face; it was too similar _not_ to. The colors were the same. The shape was the same. Even the facial expression was one he had often seen reflected in the _Ark_'s walls when he spoke at Primal, sometimes to him. That expression of disbelief that _anyone_ could be so slagging _stupid_. It was his own face.

But the name didn't match. The name of his face, the name of _him?_, was Meagos. Not DepthCharge.

He stared in mute disbelief, and his optics were drawn to the corner of the data key. The date was there. It read a date a full three months _before_ he could ever remember hearing of Dihexaline.

_Something is wrong. This is wrong._

He knew that. Of _course_ he knew that. He knew it utterly, just as he knew the bot at the main desk console in the image was a mech named Flyfire. He knew it. He knew something was wrong, and it wasn't the date, it wasn't Flyfire. It was the name, and his _face_ that went with it.

_It can't be ME!_ his mind raged and wailed. _It's a fake, it's not real, it can't be true!_

_But how can Flyfire be true? How can he be real?_

Maybe part of the image had been falsified. He knew that was very possible…except in the date box, there was text revealing this image to be a security scan. And he remembered enough of Dihex that it had _had_ a good defense and security system. Once. At one time.

_It can't be_, he insisted, and on the tracks of that, _X. Rampage._

_This came from him. How did he GET this? What does it mean?_

_You know what it means,_ wheedled a dark voice. _You KNOW what it means._

"No," DepthCharge growled, shaking his head, and checked over the file folders. They contained nothing but past security scan texts…and another image of his face with the name Meagos, talking to Flyfire and the red Dragon. "_No._"

"It's a lie!" he cried aloud. "It is…"

_Security texts? You used to read them…slag, you used to MAKE these for Omicron!_ crowed the dark voice. _You used to make these. And it was hard enough to fob them there. At Dihex, it would have been impossible! Im-slagging-possible!_

"No…it _can't _be."

_But it is and you know it. Don't pretend stupid now of al else._

"It's a fake," he growled. "It's not _me_. I never even heard of Dihex until months later!"

_And how positive are you of THAT? You've never heard of memory swipes?_

"Don't talk paranoid!" he ordered, but that wasn't quite what it all was, now, was it? "Dihex had no reason to swipe me!"

_Unless…?_

"Unless what!"

_Unless there is something they didn't want you to know. At least you have admitted it IS you in that image. You know how hard it is to fool defense scans._

"It's not," he repeated. He was aware of how pitiful a litany that was.

_It is. And you are. You are in that image. And your name was Meagos._

"That name means nothing to me!" Pitiful.

_Was. It does not have to mean a thing. You simply might not remember a time when it was._

"Even Primal knows my name!"

_Yes, and we all know how stupid he is. But he knew of you AFTER the Omicron and Rugby incidents, didn't he? Your name was DepthCharge then, and it still is…but X knew about you BEFORE those both. What does he know, ray? What does he know that you still refuse to see?_

"It's NOT!" screamed DepthCharge in despair, unaware that his grip had destroyed the data entry keypad on the computer. The monitor was not faring well either. "It can't be!"

_Don't be Optimus. You're not stupid. You know what you see. You might not know who you are…or were…but you're not stupid enough to pretend they might not be the same person._

"It's a lie. Scans can be faked."

_Then you are lying to yourself. Because you know. You know there was always something wrong. How did Rampage know about you BEFORE he attacked those places? You never saw him before in your life…not in a life you can remember at least. But trails prove that he was stalking you down. He stalked you and killed every place where you should have been but were not. And no one could tell you WHY._

"Because he's a beast! A _monster_!"

_And what makes you so special, DepthCharge? Meagos?_

"My name is DepthCharge!"

_Names don't matter, do they? You said that about X. Rampage. The monster is the same. The label won't and can't change it. No…what matters is what you know. What you remember. And why X went after you. What ever made you so special that not even you can remember?_

"No…"

_You know what this means. Perhaps you were Meagos. Perhaps you were always this Meagos. And perhaps…that is how Rampage remembers you._

"NO!" he screamed, and on the trails of that, another unraveling thought: How would he remember me?

_You remember that Dihex said he escaped two times?_

"No….no…"

_Yes, yes. You do. But no one told you any details now, did they? And even when you thought to ASK, someone changed to Omicron, to Rugby, to the SECOND escape. What didn't they tell you, DepthCharge? What didn't they tell you, Guardian? And what's more…why? Why would it matter how X escaped the first time? You had a right to know, after all._

"It was confidential…"

_That's professional words for: it's none of your business. But it was your business. Everything about X WAS your business, wasn't it? Isn't it? You had a right to know how he got away the first time. Perhaps had someone told you, X might not have ended up in stasis. Perhaps. Perhaps. But there was no perhaps because NO ONE told you! And why not, DepthCharge? What was so special about that first release that they couldn't tell you?_

_Was it about you?_

"Shut up!" he bellowed, and flung the computer as hard as he could; it shattered and ricocheted in a million shiny pieces against the wall, to the ground, and into the water. But he knew, or at least a part of him did, that it didn't matter how great the silence was; something was unraveling. Something was _clicking_. And he was afraid to see just what.

_It had to have been…because none of the techs at Dihex would tell you, would they? And no one else knew. They never said a word to you…perhaps because it was about you._

_Rampage has called you Meagos before. And the image, the picture. How did he know you? Did he know you before he escaped? That doesn't explain why he tracked you down…or does it? What did he know, what does he know? Why did he track you down, DepthCharge? And why has he always called you 'old friend?' An insult? _

DepthCharge could only growl. His fists were clenched hard enough to draw mech from the armor, and his optics were as dark as the voice.

_Or something more? What is it, DepthCharge? How does X know Meagos, but you don't? If not a memory scan, then what? You said you never knew him before Omicron, but he certainly knew you. No one told you about Alphix, or anywhere else X might have gone or DID go on his first escape. No one told you a thing…but X knew you before Omicron, I think it is safe to say. Because after his first escape and recapture he went after you. No one told you anything, but he went after YOU._

_What makes you so special, DepthCharge? What makes you special enough that Rampage-X went after you…but no one could tell you a thing about his first escape? About Alphix? What makes you so special that you were allowed every slug of information about his second, and his second recapture but not a word about his first? What makes you so special, DepthCharge? And why did X track YOU down with messages and claims of old comradeship…those two things are linked, and you know it. You know it._

Perhaps he did.

_And he even said he MET you at Dihex…_

_He wrote those messages to YOU…and no one told you a thing about his first escape._

_Could it be possible then, DepthCharge…that you were there?_

"I would have remembered," he whispered darkly.

_Unless there was memory replacement…but perhaps it is much worse, because it always almost is. Perhaps…perhaps you were not only there when he escaped, DepthCharge. Perhaps there was something worse, and that is why you got the replacement and scan…that would explain so much. Like why X would track you down. How he knew of you before Omicron and Rugby. And why you were never told about his first escape…because perhaps you were at fault for it? Perhaps…you even did it?_

Without a target to strike out at, DepthCharge rallied magnificently, stepping back and away into the ocean, the water splashing roughly from the abrupt entry, beastmoding as he rammed into a wall, destroying a century of native coral, and fled to the surface. There was someone up there he had a need to speak with. Although he was not certain speaking was the best word for what he had to do.

* * *

><p>A full hour after his old friend went in search of him, Rampage left the <em>Darkside<em> again. Not on patrol, this time, but merely because…he could. He had no idea if the ray had looked over the disc yet, and even less theories of how DepthCharge would take the information (if he read it at _all_), but he wanted to be out of the Predacon ship in the case the ray went looking for him. That factor, combined with the fact he despised the base for many reasons, and he currently had an hour of off-time before he was due back at the base, made for a nice, although speedy, trip to the beach.

Rampage _liked_ the beach. Or at least his beast mode did, and when it all came down to the nitty gritty of life, he _was_ his beast mode, his beast mode _was_ him, and so he liked the beach. None of the other Predacons went near the ocean if they could help it. He surmised it was mostly because of _their_ beast modes…and the fact that they were afraid to run into him on his native turf.

He relaxed in the sands, digging himself a small burrow; even though it was technically impossible for a Transmetal to sun itself, it was certainly worth a shot, especially when a beast mode demanded it.

_I wonder,_ and he truly did. What would DepthCharge _do_ with such a disc? It had been painfully obvious that he, Rampage, had left it for the ray. So either the Guardian would destroy it…or would look it over. What his reaction would be was anyone's guess. Rampage knew that it was premature hope, expecting Meagos to come back (if he could, of course) from a mere disc, a few images and texts…but hope, he had come to understand, was always premature. Hope had gained him nothing thus far in life.

He let his optic sensors dim; even though his beast mode lacked eyelids, and was not technically blind with optics off, it was a sensation _like_ closing the lids. A natural feeling like recharge, sleep. If he had the power to close down radar, he would have as well. Rampage knew the ray would be coming for him no matter what his reaction to the disc was; it only seemed right that he use what had started all this to track his progress. He did not have to wait long, again.

The explosion from the sea barely startled him, and the crab lifted his head, antennae perked in interest as DepthCharge burst from the waves, water streaming from his form. His optics blazing, in one hand he held his remora blaster, and in the other, his tail spear in the other. But he did not seem prepared to use them.

"X," he said, his voice tight and taut.

"Hello, Meagos," replied Rampage as politely as he could manage, and dodged the first shot quickly, transforming to bot mode with his launcher in hand. "Something on your mind, _old_ friend?"

"Where did you get that disc?" demanded the ray; he seemed to be shivering, but from rage…and something else? Rampage could not tell for certain, but he was willing to bet there was another emotion under there as well. "WHERE, slag you, X?!"

"From archives," purred Rampage, emerald optics narrowed. How much had DepthCharge retained, how much had he simply ignored? Was there really anything _left_? "All from Dihexaline Labs itself, Fishface…and what do you remember about that place, hm? You always commented on Dragon and his stupid stairs. Remember those?"

"You're _mad_." Another shot from the remora blaster, which Rampage sidestepped easily with a laugh.

"I can't deny that," he admitted truthfully. "But _you_ are insane yourself, Meagos! Or stupid, to deny the truth!"

"Don't call me that!" roared the Guardian, and flung his spear; had Rampage stayed still, it would have chopped his right arm off at the elbow joint. But instead the crab shot it to pieces, taking another step from the ocean. DepthCharge's optics flared as the pieces landed like rain, and stepped closer.

_It ends now, X_. But no…_no_, there was something small inside him that ordered him to stop, to pause, to _think_ for once. It was madness, it _was_ lunacy…but that image. His face at Dihex _months_ before he ever remembered being there. The messages. _But it's only one. Here, kitty kitty._ He stared at Rampage in raw fury, his blaster arm trembling. _What do you know, damn you?_

"It's a fake," he finally growled, when he trusted his voice enough not to bellow his rage. Rage at everything, at Rampage (Omicron, Rugby, for all those innocents), at Rampage for _everything_ that had gone wrong in his life, for all of it could be traced back to one protoform freak who killed for pleasure. Rage…and doubt. Yes, doubt. Rage and then raging at doubt. "It's a _fake_."

"Who are you trying to convince, Meagos?" Rampage smirked. "_I _know who you are. I know what they did to you after Alphix…but you read about that, didn't you?"

"It was a colony," said DepthCharge thickly as the Guardian inside him wailed how big a mistake this was, _listening_ to X, of all people!, "a colony _you_ destroyed!"

"I didn't do it alone," purred the crab. "_You_ were with me!"

The ray stared at him in silence. "You _lie_," he whispered fiercely. "I _never_-"

"You don't remember," said Rampage coolly. "You just _don't_."

"I think I would remember something like that," snarled DepthCharge. _What am I doing…what are YOU doing! You're a Guardian, you can't be LISTENING to this!_

"You would…and you would have remembered Altair-5, and the shuttles we stole…and Sycorax too, I bet, and every other colony and starbase…but you can't even remember Dragon, can you? That red chatterbox? You don't even remember _me_, Meagos…because of that memory wipe! That _glitch_-"

DepthCharge screamed in rage, opening fire, and then in sudden shocked pain as his remora blaster was shot from his hand, singeing his fingers and smoking his wrist. He stared in astonishment for a moment.

"It's not there. What, did you think I'd shrunk it?" growled Rampage with a low chuckle. "_Stop_ this, Meagos, just admit it!" DepthCharge stared at him in shock…and something else besides naked wrath. Whatever it was, it was enough to keep the ray from attacking him. "It was a _glitch_, Meagos! I know they reprogrammed you, because you were _just like me_ once! You wonder why no one ever _told_ you about my first escape? It was because YOU got me free! YOU _set me loose_! And then they recaptured us…and Omicron, and Rugby."

"You _lie_," whispered DepthCharge. He was paralyzed, and not solely from fury. _It can't be, it cannot BE!_

_What else is true then?_ demanded that dark voice. _You…wanted to know and Rampage is the only one left alive now. And Dragon…he knows Dragon! That red bot in the image…well, we could see him again save you destroyed it, didn't you? Yes, you did…denial is so powerful._

"It's not true," whispered the ray again. "It's NOT."

_Then what else is? Ask the Maximals. Ask Primal. Ask ANYONE. Perhaps you can even ask Megatron to read over Sentinel; perhaps that computer system kept some files. You can ask and you can read…and what if this is all true? It makes sense! What else does?_

"No….!"

_Those missing months. You were never at Dihex until much later…but that image! That image! How else would X have known you…tracked you down…he only killed Omicron and Rugby because YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE THERE. And you weren't! But he left those messages to make you follow him…those missing months, Alphix. The unanswered questions._

_X has escaped again? What do you mean, AGAIN? And then how they all ignored your questions, changed the subject? _

_You were told Dihex was your sponsor, and that sounds true. And your name is DepthCharge. But you were also told Dihex suggested that name change. From WHAT, ray? From WHAT did they change it TO!?_

_Was it Meagos?_

"NO!" shrieked DepthCharge, and that was when he felt something grab him from behind, spinning him around suddenly, and even as he saw Rampage was the one holding onto him, a vicious snarl on his face, something strong and oddly sticky was slammed against his disc launcher _again_, and then he was shoved hard into the sand. He barely managed to scream out a curse, and then Rampage was _standing on his back_, forcing him into the sand even deeper.

"SHUT UP!" bellowed the crab, and DepthCharge struggled all the harder as he felt large, monstrous hands close in on the back of his head. "STOP fighting, you idiot!" Rampage growled. "_ADMIT IT! Admit it, you idiot_!"

"Never!" the ray shrieked, and in his head came the dull dark echoes of that alien voice. The same one that had insisted X deserved nothing but death…the very same voice that had mocked him from day one in his quest to find X and bring him to justice. To death. _Laughing. Laughing at ME!_

_Admit it! What other answer makes SENSE?_

The Guardian screamed in rage, trying again without success to get up, to knock Rampage from him.

_He's not killing you, fool! He's not killing you! He wants something else!_

_Then LET him WANT!_

"Get off!" Of course, with his head in the sand, only vague noises came back from the dirt, and Rampage certainly was not going to listen to them. "Admit it!" he challenged back.

_Admit it, you! Go with what he says! What else makes sense?_

"I'm not him!" shrieked the ray, finally moving his head up enough that speech was understandable. "_I'm not Meagos! I'm not a killer!_"

"You called it culling the weak!" snarled Rampage, and felt something within him start to wilt, to fade. Could it be true, could it be _possible_ that Meagos was indeed dead? He was silent for a moment, then shoved the ray even harder into the sandbank, leaping from his back and landing some yards away.

The ray sputtered to his knees, and then feet. Sand, wet and sticky, clung to his face and torso, which he wiped away in a near-blind rage; he snatched up his remora blaster with shaky hands, aiming at Rampage.

"You're really dead, aren't you," said the crab flatly. "Those Dihex creeps really did a number on you."

"They didn't do a thing," whispered the ray softly, his voice tight with fury. "They _created_ you."

"And that image I sent you?"

"A lie."

"Of course." Rampage pulled his launcher from subspace. "So you're dead, Meagos."

"That's not my _name_, X."

"Rampage." He fingered the trigger.

"Names don't matter," spat DepthCharge. He was fighting the urge to hold his head, to scream at that dark voice to _shut up_ with the laughing. His entire head _ached_. It was hard to concentrate on Rampage. "You're still the same monster."

"So are you. Only your target has changed. From the stupid to…me."

Laughter. Cold, heartless laughter echoing and reverberating in his cranium. _From the stupid to Rampage. Only you fall into that first group, ray…you know you do. What is the definition of stupidity? Seeing the truth with open working optics but choosing to believe a lie instead. Stupidity: see Primal. See…a reflection?_

_What was your name before DepthCharge? Why couldn't didn't anyone tell you about X's first escape? WHAT happened at Dihex, what has happened, what did happen…and you can't remember a thing about it._

_What has happened to you, DepthCharge? What hasn't anyone TOLD you? Why hasn't anyone been able to say why Rampage came after you? How did he hear of you? What has happened to you…that you don't even remember?_

"Nothing," he growled. "No. No….no."

He suddenly couldn't stay here any longer. He had to leave. No shooting, no talking…merely to walk back to the ocean, and DepthCharge knew if he did that, he might survive. His head might stop, the voice might stop. It was the only way. He could kill Rampage another day. Right now…his body had turned traitor on him.

"Meagos," came from behind him.

DepthCharge felt the snarl building, and it took all of his (his? was it really his? And if it was, which part of his? The voice? Something…_else?_) willpower not to fire, not to shoot, not to obey instinct. Walk away, ordered his mind….just _leave. Walk away._

_This is X, this is the person who had killed everyone on Omicron, this is-_

"You remember, don't you."

"I'm not _him_," spat the fish, about to turn away. "Don't call me that." _It's too late. You spoke…and now you will listen._

"But you _are_ him, Meagos. It is you, it has _always been_ you. Those scientists may have reprogrammed your memories, but you're no fool, you know this is me, and this is you." Rampage lowered his launcher, and waited.

The ray gave a low groan that was not one of defeat but pitiful denial. His head ached…and the laughter was louder than ever. "That's not _ME_, X, and you know it! I'm through with your mind games!"

"Rampage is the name now, Meagos, DepthCharge, the names don't matter. The people do. Remember that conversation we had on the way to Altair-5?" Rampage stepped closer, watching the manta ray, the Guardian, the torn expression on his face of denial. "About being labeled protoform first, and a letter tacked on for classification, both of which formed a name?"

"_Shut up!_"

"But you DO remember, or some of it at least...do you remember that settlement we found?"

The remora wavered. "I told you to SHUT UP!" _Laughter. It was as loud as detonation._

Rampage didn't waver; for once, the bitter taste of hope rose again, and this time did not sink. "You possibly do, in the depths of the darkness of your spark, you remember, and you remember that you LIKED it too."

"I was reprogrammed, it was a glitch!"

_There is it. There is it, that is what I needed to hear! And aha,_ Rampage thought privately, _if you cannot accept the whole truth, take in piece by piece. Meagos…I think he is alive still. I think. I hope…he HAS to be!_

"Yes, it was a glitch," he soothed, "but it _was _a glitch that unlocked the truthfulness of yourself! You were beholden to no Maximal programming."

"I was a _monster_!"

"So you accept it now?"

"NO," roared the manta, and the released energy blast shattered a stone yards from Rampage; it occurred to him that DepthCharge was not _aiming_ at anything. "_NO_, I am _NOT_ who you say, it's all lies...I don't even know why I am LISTENING to you!" The ray was still shaking, and his optics grew brighter.

"I'll tell you why," Rampage whispered, his voice dropping an octave, and hating himself all the while, DepthCharge listened. If asked why, he would not have been able to explain; but he did know that the moment he was silent, agreeing to listen…the laughter stopped and was just as silent.

"You listen because you hate me, yes," soothed Ramage softly, optics green flame, and he lowered his launcher, "and even as Meagos I think part of you hated the fact I could kill and kill forever and you would one day die…and now my immortality has a price, and that is slavery." He was silent for a pause.

"But you hate me now and you listen because you must deny this, you must deny it _all_, otherwise you are myself, you are no better than me. And yes, you WERE reprogrammed, but only after the glitch was found. They sought to keep you from yourself, Meagos, they sought to keep the Guardian alive. And that's not what you ever were, really."

"I AM a Guardian!" _Soft laughter now. Oh…are you? Really?_

"Of what?" challenged the crab, echoing the black voice within DepthCharge. "Omicron is _dead_."

"YOU killed it!" DepthCharge took a careful step forward, but could not, for some reason, raise his blaster.

"Only to remind you! You had no idea I existed…you had no idea WHO you were, what you were! And I know that part of you, even with this Guardian protocol slammed through your circuits and forcibly being …I know a part of you _liked_ it."

The manta was shaken now to the point that Rampage could physically take note of it. "I did _not_. You KILLED-"

"And you did too, and the only reason WHY this bothers you is because of that slagging protocol that was forced into your head! Do you remember _nothing_?" Rampage paused as memory surged across his mind, a dank trail of decadence. "How they dragged us down and had to send in over ten bots _apiece_ to subdue us? How they stuck a prod on you and gave your spark a jolt of electricity so great it went into shock? Do you remember the _screams_ and then realize they weren't from prey but from _me_, being tormented and tested on by those slagging scientists, by _Dragon_? Do you remember releasing me from that damned table of operations? _What do you remember, Meagos_?"

"THAT IS NOT MY NAME!"

Rampage seemed to smile; hope was barely visible on his face. "But names don't matter…no, they don't. You know that. X, Rampage, Meagos, DepthCharge...it doesn't matter the name or the form but the _mind_. In your case, your mind has been muddled with, covered and congealed with lies Maximals saw fit to throw over on you. And how rewarding WAS it, Meagos, to be their little puppet, to rescue little brats from falling buildings and work with land disputes? How rewarding WAS it to be a slave to the public as I am slave to Megatron?"

The ray was silent.

"Because I know how rewarding it had to have been...how you must have fought that darkness after you were reprogrammed and forgot nearly _everything_. How you had to deny that the beast, that monster, for a better word, existed. How you were a _Guardian_, you were sworn to protect the stupid and the weak rather than remove them, to be an evolutionary conquest. You deny Meagos is your name, because Meagos killed over one hundred people, but you cannot deny that a beast may change its stripes or its spots or its form, stasis pods prove _that_...but its nature is always the same, and its nature is always revealed in its eyes. A professor I knew once told me that."

Rampage waved with a hand, near flourishing at the ocean, subspacing his launcher in the same smooth movement. "What do your optics say, Meagos?" And DepthCharge, unable to stop himself, could only look.

The ocean made an eerie mirror at best, but it was a clear day, and so close to shore, the water was nearly the same. DepthCharge stared, his remora launcher held loosely in one hand, and even as a part of him screeched about leaving his back turned to Rampage, the larger part of his mind only softly laughed, and then was silent.

Yellow and teal stared back at him. But that was normal; those were the same colors, however, that Meagos had had on _his_ face. His fins arched behind him, but DepthCharge only had eyes for his face. Yellow, yes, teal, yes…and crimson. Brilliance crimson, as bright and as dark as fresh fire, as organic blood. He had once seen a sharks' feeding frenzy on patrol, and the gaze back at him was that same tint of red.

_What do they say? What do they say? _

_They speak…red. Organic blood. Fire. Sweet, delicious organic blood…a memory of eating once, beast mode and tuna. Red. Crimson. How many shades, how many colors?_

_Colors are mute. What do they SAY?_

"What do," he whispered, unaware that Rampage was standing behind him, watching warily, but hopefully, "what do…what do they _say?_"

He might have answered when there came a terrible shriek behind him; a shadow fell, and the ray spun around with wide optics. Wide, however, but now silent.

* * *

><p>Rampage still had a few minutes left, to be certain. And Megatron was not usually in the kind of mood to go <em>looking<em> for him. But then again, sometimes being cooped up in a ship of idiots was enough to make one crave fresh air.

The Transmetal dinosaur had not been looking for his crab puppet. But when he had seen Rampage's…and a Maximal's!, energy signatures so close together, he had decided to investigate. It was hardly likely that any Predacon to stay in the same area as a Maximal without fighting…and Megatron had heard _no_ sounds that would have proven a battle taking place.

Megatron did not have a stealth mode, but leading these Predacons, as well as plotting with them and others to steal the Golden Disk itself, not to mention the getaway, _had_ given him an edge to silence. Most bots were far too used to others, like assassins, who moved stealthily. Being stealthy was no good. Silence, however, had yet to fail him, and in this instance, had given him quite a lot of information about his pet crab. Megatron would have _never_ thought Rampage so eloquent, much less civil in speech. Yet here he had been, speaking to the Maximal manta ray Megatron vaguely recognized from Sentinel's records, and about such things!

_Rampage is the name now, Meagos, DepthCharge, the names don't matter. The people do. Remember that conversation we had on the way to Altair-5? About being labeled protoform first, and a letter tacked on for classification, both of which formed a name?_

_Do you remember nothing? How they dragged us down and had to send in over ten bots apiece to subdue us? How they stuck a prod on you and gave your spark a jolt of electricity so great it went into shock? Do you remember the screams and then realize they weren't from prey but from me, being tormented and tested on by those slagging scientists, by Dragon? Do you remember releasing me from that damned table of operations? What do you remember, Meagos?_

Megatron had listened most calmly throughout most of these eerie and rather strange rants; he had no idea if what Rampage was saying was true, and nor did he particularly care. There were, after all, _much_ better ways of obtaining information, and when he got these two back to the ship, no doubt they would inform him of everything.

The Maximal looked stunned, astonished, weak, and surely was not concentrating on his surroundings at all; he even turned his back on Rampage to look in some slagging water! Megatron watched this with interest, transformed to bot mode, and then compressed the crab's spark box in his left hand. _Now_ Rampage was three minutes late to being back at base…and he knew the consequences for being late.

The crab was dropped almost instantly to his knees, hands at his chest with a shriek loud enough to scare away seagulls nearly a mile away. He barely managed to turn his head to see Megatron, and then was floored from the tyrant making a fist with the box in his fingers. His spark screeched in near-mortal agony, and his vocal unit seemed to be trying to match it decibel by decibel.

"Stay there, Maximal!" ordered Megatron, and DepthCharge's optics flickered to the tyrant, and then seemed to be trapped on the glowing mass of spark box.

_Spark_, whispered the dark part of his mind that was spreading like a plague, a virus injected in a blood stream, conquering native cells in swoops. _SPARK._

_As if drawn by magnets, his optics trailed along a shock box's cord; the cord was not attached to anything, but the spark itself, or at least the bearings under it. _

_To shock the spark__, he realized dimly, and he stepped closer, the protoform freezing and staring at him warily. __To shock its SPARK?_

_Yes…and judging from the scorch marks on the cord…they had been doing just that. __Those technicians were SHOCKING its SPARK?_

_Shocking its spark! Shocking…the shock boxes, the glow, the electricity and the cords. The cart of shock boxes being flung over by something…a body. A torn and ripped screaming body that was not a body yet because it was still screaming alive._

_He's shocking the spark!_ screamed that darkness, and for one second, DepthCharge's optics flared in horror. His arm came up suddenly, and Megatron, who had his attention diverted for only a second, when the Guardian needed only half of that time, did not see as the remora blaster was fired. He _did_ feel it, however, because the Maximal had aimed for his chest and released several high blasts of laser energy.

Megatron roared in surprise, nearly falling back from the surprise of it all, and the Maximal plunged forward, firing rapidly. In one smooth movement, he bent quickly, snatching up a shard of his broken tail spear, and whisked it at the shocked tyrant. Shock blossomed into pain as his left hand was sheared away, the box glowing brilliantly as it landed. Another handful of bright and agonizingly well-aimed shots flung Megatron face-down into the sand.

He laid there, stunned, for less than three seconds, but by the time he had started to roll over, he heard the sound of metal on metal, sand flowing away, and the Predacon looked up to see the box in one hand of the Maximal. The ray stared at him with sanguine optics, then fired again. And again. Again, and the Predacon's torso was a smoking ruin.

Still, it would not be long before someone else came. DepthCharge stared at the tyrant, at the box, then at Rampage, who was on his back, optics off. A quick glance at the spark box would have revealed why, but the ray had never examined it closely before. After so much wear and tear and use, a shard of energon crystal, small to be certain, nearly microscopic, had broken from the original crystal and landed in the spark core. The crab was not offline, but in a stasis-like form.

Megatron. The spark box. Rampage. The ocean…and his optics gleamed back at him.

That was enough for the Guardian. He subspaced the box quickly, and after some careful rearranging, managed to grab, carry, and partially drag Rampage into the ocean. It was much easier to drag him along underwater. They made it back to DepthCharge's base in nearly record time.


	4. Chapter 4

Cat and Mouse

_Cat and mouse_

_tis but a feast_

_in the end, who will eat_

_but the beast?_

"…_it's still in all of us, but most of you struggle so hard to hide it from yourselves, to convince yourselves that you're something cleaner and better than what you really are. The irony is, if you'd just for once acknowledge your reptile nature, you'd find the freedom and the happiness that you're all so frantic to achieve and never do."_

_ He shook his head as if saddened by the sight of her. "Untouched and alive? What kind of existence is that, Chyna? Not one worth having…embrace the cold and the dark. That's what we are."_

_Dean Koontz_

_Intensity_

The protoform formerly known only as X awoke in near darkness. There was light, but what little of it there was had a dim, shimmering quality to it. Light under water, light passing _through_ water from an outside source.

His optics slowed glowed online, and even then he was uncertain as to his location. He was obviously in a very small room; there was enough space for him to stand (which he did not) and perhaps walk around a bit (still no) before he would slip into the water at the base of the spacing. The light was coming from that water, dim and shimmering with organic life. There, and from a small lamp in the semi-round room's corner. The light it gave off was eerily blue-green, as colorful as the walls.

He was alone.

Rampage slowly sat up; somehow he had been leaning against a wall, and while his head ached, his memories were rather intact. The last thing he remembered was the beach…DepthCharge, perhaps Meagos…and then Megatron. He had only had a slight glimpse of the tyrant before the sheer agony of that damned box echoed inside him. He barely remembered falling down, and then only blackness…and now a room of watery light.

_Well, this is new._

The water shore surged suddenly, and, transforming as he left the waves, DepthCharge stepped into the area. For a moment he only stared at Rampage, then waited, the water lapping around his feet.

Waiting to escape? Somehow Rampage didn't think so. His optics widened as the ray removed something bright from subspace, and then he truly knew he was damned.

_Oh, you thought Dihex was bad? Or Megatron? _

_I never believed in Hell, but it seems it does believe in me._

The core of his spark, encased in Megatron's infernal spark box rested in Omicron's Guardian's hands. But the box was not clenched; it was not compressing. Yet.

Rampage watched and waited in shocked silence. He still had no idea how he had gotten here, wherever _here_ was…but a look at DepthCharge hinted very clearly.

_So he has my spark now…and Megatron did. So he attacked that tyrant fool and now he has it._

Rampage stared into DepthCharge's optics. A raw streak of fear rippled through him dimly, and he barely acknowledged it. Crimson optics stared back impassively.

"Well," Rampage finally said after an eternity of red, "which of us is going to speak first, Fishface?"

_That_ seemed to snap the Guardian's attention, and he blinked. A surge of hatred echoed through his spark and Rampage's systems, and the crab could barely hide his smirk. So he had been right after all. Not a slagging thing, not a _damn_ thing left.

But other than that blink, DepthCharge had yet to move. Somehow this was worse than outright threats, or even compressing the box.

Rampage tried a new tactic; or rather, a very, very old tactic. "What am I doing here?"

The Guardian's face seemed to twist with the effort of thought. "I have you now," he said after a pause, nearly brandishing the spark box.

"So I see," replied the crab softly. "And now what do you plan to do?"

Silence from DepthCharge.

"What do you plan, DepthCharge? What's on the agenda for my spark?" Rampage's optics gleamed. "For me?"

Silence still. Not a flicker of animation.

"Do you plan to….oh, drop it in a lava bank somewhere? Or perhaps use it as bait, attract some large sea creature? Offer it to Optimus as a sign of goodwill, and THEN break it? Allow that overstuffed rhinoceros to sit on it? Play toss over some lava?"

Silence.

Rampage paused. "So you have me now. What will you do with me?"

Again.

"Take me back to Cybertron?" mused the crab, shifting more upright. "Dihex is dead, unless they've rebuilt it in our absences. So, take me there? Back to tests and experiments? Back to certain death for anyone else? Or…elsewhere? Take me to some gladiatorial planet, earn some fast credits? Sell my parts for scrap? Use that spark box as a toy, as Megatron did?"

Barely a flicker in the ray's optics.

"Perhaps use me against the Predacons? Win this stupid war of stupid people? And then what? Turn me loose on the Maximals?" He eyed the ray. "No…not quite your style anymore, is it?"

He _finally_ stirred. "It never was, X."

"There's no lying to yourself…well, save the fact that you're doing it quite well, actually."

A barely strangled sound hissed from the Guardian's throat. "I never said you were right-"

"But you can't prove I'm wrong either," purred Rampage softly. "So here you stand upon the cutting edge, old friend…here you are, finally, at long last, you have _me_. You own my spark, you can either make me shriek for mercy or just keel over and wish for death. Or…you could spare my spark, give it back…destroy that box-"

"Shut. Up." Cold, cruel, and very clipped. Yet the Guardian's optics seemed to waver.

Rampage was silent for a moment. "How do you love the life inside that ship, Meagos?"

"Don't call me that."

"Answer the question. How much do you love those Maximals? That ape, who seems to delight in having a crew whose stupidity just _barely_ surpasses his own. The rhino who never leaves the base. The Fuzor and his spider. And don't get me started on that idiot rodent and cat." He smiled suddenly. "A rat and a cat, Meagos…or better still, a kitty."

A dangerous flicker in those crimson depths.

"_Here, kitty, kitty_," leered the crab. "I know you remember that…and Omicron and all the bodies, all the corpses. That place was as well guarded as Altair-5."

Flicker, like a moth caught in the flame. Whispering, hissing, burning in living death.

"A cat and rat…cat and mouse, Meagos." He smiled. "You've been hunting for me forever. Or at least it seems like it. The hunter and the prey…tell me, which one do you want to be? Which one _did_ you want to be?" He chuckled darkly. "And then even when you helped in capturing me that second time…someone set me free. High Command ordered me to a barren place." He waved a hand dramatically. "So here I am. The mouse has been caught." His optics gleamed. "Or has he?"

"You can't get away." A flat statement.

"I never said that. But I _did_ ask which one you were. The cat, always on a blind hunt for his hunger…or the mouse, which is on the same quest, only different targets. Which animal are you, Meagos….DepthCharge, which beast are you?"

Silence.

"Has it ever occurred to you that we each may be both? Both predator and prey at the same time?" He grinned. "That's nearly philosophy, isn't it? Rather good for someone who was never supposed to be able to speak."

Silence. The ray only watched him warily, the hand on the spark box relaxed but holding it easily.

"But back to reality: you have Megatron's spark box. You have my spark. You have me. All right, I can buy that, because it sounds like your wildest fantasies." Rampage's optics glittered with malice. "But what I want to know is _why_."

"Why!" sputtered the ray. "You want to know _why-_"

"Why you brought me here," the crab interjected quickly. "The spark box, I can guess why as to that, and Megatron too. You are, after all, a _Maximal_, and we are in a war, as stupid as it is. But why did you bring me here?" He paused. "To gloat? But that's not quite your style, is it?"

"You don't know anything about my style."

"Not anymore, perhaps. But I've seen enough." Rampage smiled. "You know why I tracked you down from Omicron and Rugby. You know I was looking for you. And you now know why. It _did_ have a motive, it all _did_ have a purpose. So I now want to know yours. Why drag me here?"

"To show you this." He raised his hand; Rampage's spark core illuminated the cavern.

"That's not it, and you know it. It would have been so much…._easier _and surely more entertaining to leave me on that beach, and _then_ squeeze that damn box. Use enough pressure to nearly knock me in stasis, and _then_ let me see who has my spark now."

He shrugged. "Dihex had it for the longest time. Then Megatron. And now you. It's the spark that keeps sparking," he added with a sardonic grin. "If you ever built descendants, you can pass it down the chain. Unless, of course, my ultimate fate is the lava."

Silence. The spark that kept on sparking continued to gleam like a falling star.

"Why did you bring me here?" asked Rampage coolly. "To have me inspect your choice of decor? To taunt me with my new ownership? Why?"

"Because."

"That's not a reason."

"It's all you are getting."

The protoform formerly known as X stood up, leaning on the wall, optics boring into DepthCharge's torso. The ray had ungunked his chest launcher, and Rampage could barely see the discs inside gleaming with the promise of the future. And what a bright future it looked to be indeed.

"That's what you said before," he commented conversationally.

"What?"

"That's what you said, almost, when I asked you before why you took me from Dihex."

DepthCharge felt a snarl building…as well as the laughter within his head. "_Why_ do you keep saying that!"

"Because it's the truth." Rampage looked honestly surprised at the question. "And you never told me what your optics said."

"I don't have to," growled the ray.

"And why haven't you used that box yet? You can easily….or are you waiting for me to try and take it by force? Or leave? And then use it, cripple me underwater for the sake of irony or justice?"

"I have yet to see a need to," said DepthCharge slowly. "Would you prefer if I _did_?"

"What do you think?" growled Rampage. "I still want to know why you brought me here."

"Doesn't matter."

"Oh," said Rampage, standing up a bit taller with a stretch. "Yes. Yes it does, actually, Fishface. Like I said before…when we were leaving Dihex-"

"_I don't believe you!_"

"Then don't. But I asked you then why you took me out, why you set me free. And you didn't respond until days later. You said it was because I didn't seem as stupid as everyone else." He laughed coldly. "And _now_ look at the company you keep. Fools all around. Tell me, if those Maximals are so _smart_, why has this war gone on as long as it has? Why did I survive my pod? Why did I even get put _into_ a pod in the first place? High Command's orders…but I thought High Command was supposed to be intelligent. Even the animals around here, the organic slugs and birds and dirt worms seem to have more intelligence than those Maximals. And here you not only are one, but you follow them without question."

"I do not."

"Don't lie to yourself. You know you're nothing more than a pawn to those people in control. Have they ever _listened_ to you, Fishface? I know you have some form of intelligence; I've seen it in action. Even here, tracking _me_ down. Role reversals, I suppose. More philosophy." His optics gleamed. "But you're nothing. In the eyes of those you blindly follow, you're no better than _me_. At least _I_ have value to them. But you…a Guardian? There are hundreds, thousands of those people. There's only one of me. And you're still a worthless blob in the grand system of Maximaldom. Not smart, not worthy, just _there_."

"You don't understand _anything_, X!"

"I understand _your_ people well enough, DepthCharge. And that is your name, isn't it? There's no Meagos left, is there?" His voice was tight, toxic.

The ray stared at him. "There never was." He winced suddenly, fighting the urge yet again to compress not the spark box but his head; the laughter was louder than thought, and he snarled faintly, Rampage watching with interest.

_You deny_, came the same thoughts, but from the different sources of Rampage and that dark voice. _You deny, you deny, fool. Pawn. Idiot. The only thing worse than an idiot is one who is pleased with THAT as his station in life._

"I know otherwise," said Rampage softly, but his optics had dimmed slightly, then grew bright again in quiet rage. "Or I did at least. Well then…DepthCharge," he said brightly, falsely, "tell me what you saw in your reflection. Was the beast still there? Or was it only codes and reprogramming?"

The ray exhaled sharply. "I didn't see anything, X."

_Deny. Deny deny deny._ DepthCharge winced again, fighting the urge. The chuckles were as dark as midnight water and as soothing as acidic rain.

_Go on and keep denying, you fool. You Optimus. You who sees the truth but would prefer to send the protoform into space. Give it a chance of survival. If nothing else, why didn't they drain out the quicksilver formation gunk so if X ever DID survive to be scanned, he would be a tiny thing? Something less than a foot tall? Why ask why?_

_Why are you such a fool? Why are you Primal?_

"I'm not," he snarled wildly. "I am _not_ him."

"You were," said Rampage softly, hands clenching to fists. It was true, then. Everything was true; his darkest and most private and personal qualms were _true_.

_Damn you Dragon. DAMN YOU! And Dihex and High Command and everyone…why couldn't you leave me ONE thing?! My freedom, all right, perhaps that is overrated…but this. No. Damn you all. I hope you roast in the Pit! _

_And I hope to see you there someday…_

A low, strangled growl forced its way from DepthCharge's throat, and he stepped from the water smoothly, his optics brightening radiantly as he pressed his giant fins against an opposing wall. His gaze seemed uncertain, even lost. "Get out."

"What did you say?" Rampage eyed him warily.

"You heard me. Get out of here. As long as I have this," and here he lifted that box again, and then subspaced it, "I have you. Get out of my cavern _now_. Before I decide to do something before I think it all through."

The crab watched him warily; the Maximal seemed to _mean_ this. Even so…

He slowly started forward, expecting everything but what happened, and that was an unblocked path to the ocean. He stepped into the cool water, nearly cold, and then glanced back at DepthCharge.

_He doesn't mean this._

But he did. The ray wasn't looking at him.

"Guardian," Rampage began, uncertain, unsure.

Still DepthCharge didn't look; Rampage had no way of knowing that he was trying to drown out the midnight chuckles in his mind; the ray's spark felt normal and in reality, was. "Go. Now."

The crab slipped away into the water, expecting to be drawn back screaming every second. He had reached the surface minutes later, still waiting for that cataclysmic agony. It never came.

_What is going on?_ he blearily wondered. _What is…what is going ON?_

The ocean held no answers for him. He headed back to shore.

* * *

><p><em>The only thing worse than an idiot is one who is pleased with THAT as his station in life.<em>

"Shut up," growled Omicron's Guardian. "Just…shut _up_."

_As Rampage said…"You listen because you hate me, yes, and even as Meagos I think part of you hated the fact I could kill and kill forever and you would one day die…and now my immortality has a price, and that is slavery."_

"He deserves it…he deserves it for _everything_ he's ever done!"

_And what was so bad that he deserves you to have his spark?_

"Omicron-"

_A colony of people who left Cybertron because their religious beliefs were limited. Of course, EVERYONE should be allowed to practice as they preach…they merely wanted the right to reprogram the Homeworld to do this._

"And Rugby-"

_A starbase of Guardians? Most of them corrupt? Such a big loss THERE._

"They didn't deserve X!"

_No one is innocent, you fool…don't tell me you believe that, not really. _

Silence.

_Fine. Believe it then. Believe that X killed all the innocent. That no one he murdered deserved to die. You know as a Guardian that most crimes are never reported. Attack, injury, death, well, granted. But so many missing cases. Kidnapping, reprogramming, the works._

"No one deserved _him_!"

_Not even you?_

Silence.

_I take it back. Not a fool, merely…confused._

"I am not," he spat viciously.

_Yes you are. You understand, at least, that you have been. Missing memories, blanked missions. And the taunts and the unanswered questions. What if he is telling the truth?_

"…he wasn't."

_And you sound so certain of yourself._

"You want me to listen to RAMPAGE?!"

_You did before._

"I….I did not!" Fast and furious in denial.

_You did. And you know it. He has no reason to lie to you…and this all matches up._

"It was a glitch!"

_And now you feel so much better? _

"I-"

_Shut up. Just shut up, just get out. Don't you realize you've lost?_

The ray was stunned silent.

_You have. You've lost now, DepthCharge, Maximal, Guardian. Maximal? That's a laugh. And Guardian? Of what? A carcass of a wasted city of religious fanatics? Oh, yes, please, pass out the congrats already. _

_You know what Dihex was doing to that spark. They called it research, Meagos called it torture. And he was right: it wasn't for the good of the scientific community. Dragon and his fellow heads wanted the secret of immortality. They wanted it for themselves, they wanted it for their friends, they wanted it for loyal drone armies. X fled. He escaped that fate, and Meagos helped him to do it._

"I am NOT-"

_Did I ever say you were?_

DepthCharge was silent for a moment. "But-"

_Quiet, Maximal. Rampage was right, you know. Nothing but a wild card in the deck, that's you. The joker trying to pretend he's a king or better. Worthless and unimportant. A pawn. But you consoled yourself with the fact that what you did MATTERED. And you know it doesn't._

"Before X, it did!"

_Shut UP about Rampage already! Or X. Whatever. You know what happened to him. And he left and tried to find you. Tried to find Meagos. And Meagos was gone. Dead. Lost under programming. Only you remained, and that must have been such a terrible thing for Rampage to understand. His friend, dead? Because someone thought he should be something else?_

"I wasn't-!"

_I told you to SHUT UP, didn't I? I might not be able to erase your stupidity, but I can try! Trust me, you would not like the result._

The ray was quiet for a while. "He deserved that torture for what he did."

_Torture for torture? Tit for tat? Where do you people come UP with these things? _

_I admit it. I once said X belonged dead…but he was right about that too. Envy. Jealousy even. _

"What are you _talking_ about!" DepthCharge stared around the cavern, uncaring that he was speaking to an empty room.

Cool laughter.

_Have you never realized that we all get what we deserve, DepthCharge?_

"This is _Rampage_!" cried DepthCharge in true agony. "He deserves whatever he _gets_ for what he's done to all those people…for what he's done to _me_! He deserves whatever he _gets_!"

_Then so do you, DepthCharge. So do you._

The ray awoke with a jerk; he had not even known he had slipped into recharge. A quick check of his internal chronometer revealed two hours had passed.

"Rampage," he barely hissed, when the echo of darkness chuckled, and he was still.

_You must stop blaming him, Guardian. He did what he did, you did what you did, and I did what I did. We all get what we deserve in the end…it's called evolution._

DepthCharge shook his head. "No-"

_Oh, but YES._

There was surely more, but the Guardian's ComLink bleeped loudly in the otherwise silence of the cavern; for a moment he stared at it in surprise, and then activated it.

"Captain Minnow?" A loud, almost eternally whiny voice.

_The rat._

Of course it was the rat. "What is it, rat?" he demanded, unnerved. The chuckles continued.

_Or…is it the mouse?_

"Eh, da Boss Ape wantsa see you topside."

DepthCharge felt his gaze pass from the communications link to the water. Back. The water. Rampage had stood there, and he had let him leave…._why_?

"Fine," he snapped, and ended the transmission with a snarl.

_And THOSE things? Those things you vowed you would defend? Those idiots? You even call them that. You can't deny it._

"I know."

_A 'Boss Ape' who wants and wants but never gets what he deserves, which is a shot in the back. The rhino who never gets outside the base. The Fuzor freak who never loses that innocence that borders on stupidity. The widow, and what more proof do you NEED of these people's madness! She helped to kill one of their own long ago, and they still allow her to join. And then the cat and the rat…_

_And then there is you. And you certainly BELONG with these people._

"This isn't about me."

_Everything is about you, Guardian of a dead colony. Maximal drone of a pyramid you can never hope to scale. Every last little detail. Alphix and Omicron both died because of you. Altair-5 and Sycorax. All those places because or FOR you…and you are still stuck in the 'Rampage deserves what he gets' phase._

"He does!"

_Everyone does. Every last insignificant ant does then. Every spark, every soul, every colony and starbase and planet gets what it deserves. Some of them deserved Rampage. Some of them deserved Rampage and Meagos._

"That's NOT-"

_But it is and you damn well know it. _A pause, even from the laughter. _You're stupid but not mindless, and you know this is all about you…what you are, who you are…as well as were._

_This is an ending now, Maximal. _

"Who _are_ you?" cried DepthCharge in desperation. Still unaware he had moved at all, his back was pressed severely against the wall, his head cradled and compressed in his hands.

_Who? _A darker laugh. _Yourself_.

The darkness rose, and bore him away with it.

_**No no this isn't me**_

_Who else would it be?_

_**It's NOT me-**_

_Then that depends again_

_**On what?**_

_On what you mean with 'me'_

…_**I am me! I am myself!**_

_And so am I_

…

_You take that at face value, don't you?_

_**You can't be**_

_But I am. Rampage was right about you_

_**He is not ANYTHING about me!**_

_We all get what we deserve, remember?_

…_**so?**_

_Then somehow he deserves you_

_**He deserves death**_

_That may well be the same thing but if he deserves you, you deserve him_

…_**that's not right**_

_Correct. There's only me…_

_**I am NOT you!**_

_No. But I AM you…and you know it. Give in to me. Give in to yourself_

_**You're insane**_

_So are you_

_**You're mad!**_

_Look in the mirror_

_**I won't!**_

_What do your optics say, Maximal?_

_**They say nothing about you**_

_Perhaps it's because you're not doing the looking then_

…

_This is me, DepthCharge, and this is you. _

_**You're not me**_

_Then you deserve me as I deserve you…_

_**STOP saying that!**_

_Take some responsibility then. look in the water. what do the eyes of the beast say?_

_**I'm not a monster**_

_I never said we were_

_**STOP that!**_

_Then look. Shut your face and look…and know what you see is a balance. It's an…embrace._

_**Of what.**_

_Of you and me, fool. Of yourself and myself…what do you see?_

This time he turned and looked, and saw it all.

A little under an hour later, he pulled out the spark box, watched the spark dance within its prison. He was not aware he was smiling as he did so, nor aware that his fingers were clenched on the grooves left by Megatron's smooth fingers.

Voices swirled in his head, lost memories, lost screams. _Do you remember nothing? How they dragged us down and had to send in over ten bots apiece to subdue us? _

He turned the box over, his smile growing. He knew what he could do with this box _now_.

_How they stuck a prod on you and gave your spark a jolt of electricity so great it went into shock? Do you remember the screams and then realize they weren't from prey but from me, being tormented and tested on by those slagging scientists, by Dragon? _

"We all get what we deserve, after all," the ray whispered darkly.

_Do you remember releasing me from that damned table of operations? What do you remember, Meagos?_

"Nothing," he said again, softly, and then activated his ComLink. "…..Rampage….?"

* * *

><p>"Rattrap? Has DepthCharge checked in yet?"<p>

The Maximal rodent quickly deactivated his computer monitor; he had been warned several times, and usually ignored the warnings, of playing card games on monitor duty. The sole reason he turned it off _now_ was because the Grape Ape had been in a bad mood about the Captain Minnow for a few days now. That kind of temper could be _very_ hazardous to computer games and monitors.

He checked the computer console's radar quickly, then frowned. "I thought I saw him, Boss Monkey…" Using his internal computer's radar, yes, the ray's energy signature appeared further back in the Ark. "Yeah, he's here."

Optimus nodded. "When did he get here?"

"Uh…" A quick scan of internal radar revealed what Rattrap already knew: he hadn't _had_ his radar active when DepthCharge had come in a little under an hour ago. "If I knew," he said truthfully, "I'd tell ya."

"Have the computer do it."

"I would, Boss Monkey…but da radar's busted."

"Since when?" demanded Rhinox from another console; a quick check into the main computer revealed that Rattrap, for once, was correct. The rhino eyed the console in concern. "When did that happen?"

"I dunno," admitted Rattrap, "Couldn'ta been too long ago, I just checked in wid da White Knight and the Pred."

"She's a Maximal, Rattrap," sighed Rhinox, his fingers working hard on the console. For some reason, the radar _had_ been shut off…intentionally, it seemed. And the program was now _blocked_.

None of this was reassuring.

Optimus sighed, and again wondered what he had ever done in this life, or a past one, to deserve this kind of fate. Karma, perhaps. "Rhinox is right, Rattrap."

"I call em as I see em," the rodent insisted. "Eh, Rhinox, you find dis block too?"

"Yes…."

Rhinox did not sound certain, and they had been in this war long enough for Optimus to realize that if his friend was uncertain, things really _were_ bad. "Rhinox?"

"It shouldn't take too long," admitted the rhino. "It's just a block…"

"Preds," announced Rattrap firmly. "Gotta be them."

"It's _always_ the Preds!" came Cheetor's desperate snarl as he stalked into the room, tail coiling around his feet.

"In case ya haven't noticed, pussy cat, we ARE still in dis war!"

Optimus shook his head as the two submerged into a discussion that was still too light to be called a real argument, and the ape was struck again, as he often was, a tender misery chord inside him aching from memory. Tigatron and Airazor, yes, their disappearance had been terrible, but they could still be alive. The Maximals had watched Dinobot _die_. And even if Optimus truly did not miss the constant fights between the raptor and Rattrap, he knew Rattrap did. A part of the rat had disappeared with Dinobot's death, and these half-hearted snarl sessions with Cheetor only proved it.

"Well, who else woulda done dis? You been playing with radar, kiddo?"

"I'm _not_ a kid, Rattrap! And you know I wouldn't!"

"…Optimus?" Rhinox stopped his questing on the console, and turned a worried glance to the ape. "I'm not picking up Silverbolt or Blackarachnia either."

"What?" Not as if the two had never _not_ strayed from their posts…but Optimus had seen them in the outpost above the _Ark_ only minutes (admittedly, several of them, but _still_) before. For once they had seemed to have their minds on the outpost, and not each other.

He sent a transmission to both of their communication links. Static was his reward. Long, blank, buzzes of static, and then silence.

"Eh, I bet dey're busy," leered Rattrap. He quite failed to see Cheetor's toxic glare.

"I talked to them about that," Optimus said, and left it at that. He knew Rattrap would make the statement into whatever he wanted.

Rattrap did, naturally, and was about to respond when his radar picked up another signature, and he could only blink. _No_, he thought_, I gotta be malfunctioning!_

He stared at the console, the broken radar system on the monitor before him, then at the others; either they had not picked up the signature, or they had…and were in shock themselves.

_No WAY. No slagging WAY!_

DepthCharge's signature was on his radar, but there was another signature. It make sense, in a way, Rattrap had to admit…save that other signature was steady and strong and coming from the opposite direction than the minnow.

"Optimus," he started to say, and that was when the others finally looked at their radar, and less than a second later, the monitors in front of Rattrap and Rhinox exploded in a flurry of metal and shard, flinging the two of them into the opposite wall with shocked and pain-filled cries. Cheetor barely missed having his torso smashed by the falling rhino, so Optimus was the sole person to see the shooter, and even then he could only pause and stare in utter shock.

_No_.

But it was so, and another blast from the large launcher spun and knocked Optimus nearly to his knees. He managed to stay upright, however, and stared. How had this happened?

_No! This can't BE!_

They then stared as one: Optimus, Rhinox, Rattrap, Cheetor. And still the disbelief held them paralyzed; even Optimus, who had finally thought enough to raise his blaster, was stunned still. How this had happened? Was it even_ possible_? And yet there Rampage stood before them in his hideous glory, smiling like a deity of death.

_Silverbolt, Blackarachnia_, the ape could only think dimly, and suddenly the static made sense to him. The unanswered ComLinks. Somehow Rampage had gotten to them…and somehow he was inside the _Ark_, and the shock was enough to warrant paralysis; not one of the Maximals could move. Rampage had not moved either, but the mech fluid that dribbled from his digits and chest was enough as evidence. He did not seem aware of the mech-smeared feather stuck on a crab-leg, nor the black spider-skin shard between his finger joints. His smile was, in the same way a forest fire or volcano eruption can be, beautiful and terrifying to behold.

He did not say a word, only smiled. The protoform with the spark that kept on sparking…whose spark and signature had not been located by the radar. Or rather, the lack of it.

The clattering behind them did not startle them all into moving, any more than the steps leading into the control room did. Cheetor and Rattrap turned quickly to stare, however, at the low chuckle from the other side of the room, and both saw both items at once. The clattering had been a metallic box. Megatron's spark box, and it was kicked and ricocheted and struck the opposing wall. It was empty.

It was the shot from behind that spun Optimus around and to the ground, tearing his horrified attention from the protoform X; by that time the others had become unfrozen enough to fire, but Rampage's aim was superb at such close range. The other three went down, but certainly not out. That would have, of course, ruined _all_ the fun.

Optimus blinked; all of this, including Rampage entering the command room, had taken under a minute, far too little time to understand, even less time to react, and he found himself staring up at DepthCharge. The ray's remora blaster was smoking.

"…._DepthCharge?_" he asked in utter disbelief and shock, and knew then that he was going insane. _It can't be…_

The ray seemed to be laughing.

"Wrong…as always, Maximal," said Meagos with a smile, and fired the same time Rampage did.


End file.
